A Hard Way Home
by Red Squirrel Writer
Summary: In the midst of a sudden, unexplained attack by an alien race on Lylat, the valiant crew of a small battle group must race against time and their own limits to save their home from destruction, and destroy dark secrets that should never have surfaced...
1. Introductions

October 10th

Sargasso Space Zone, Near Asteroid Mining Station _Horizon_

Nadal Corvus Ani came into his quarters with the air of one who had spent many weeks working and few days resting. It was odd that with comparatively so little to do the otter would still be so busy. Then again, he was captain of a fast attack carrier and its accompanying escort frigates. Just running that small group alone would eat up days of time. But he was also in charge of half an asteroid field in the Sargasso Space Zone, recently mined and put to use by all of Lylat ever since Star Fox had so generously annihilated the pirates there following the end of the Aparoid invasion.

Nadal had not fought for this position. Nor had he really been expecting it or wanting it. He did not have the profile of a great leader. Despite being an otter, he was not physically imposing. His body was shorter than most of his species, despite being well proportioned. His voice was not booming or authoritative, and his soft brown eyes did not bear the experienced glint of older and wiser commanders. Rather, he had been forced into his captaincy by the constant stress of war on the Lylat system. He was only thirty-six years old, but had seen nearly constant warfare and the loss of countless friends, and suffered through dozens of battlefield promotions and transfers. Most of the "old guard" (or what was left of it) looked down on his youth and therefore supposed inexperience. But Nadal had seen enough of war to last a lifetime.

He sat down on his easy chair, reminiscing about the first few days of combat he had seen. Fourteen years ago, at the beginning of the first war with Andross, he had been a squadron leader of a small group of corvettes on Fichina. Venomian fighters had struck without warning, and Nadal had gained some recognition when he and his group had fought a more desperate than heroic rear guard action while the messy and disorganized Cornerians fled at top speed. They had abandoned the planet to Venom at a cost of seventy percent of their own forces, and the colonists left behind had suffered miserably. But Nadal had gotten his men out alive. That had been his goal ever since.

In the eight years following he had been promoted to lieutenant commander of a small escort frigate, just in time for the Aparoid invasion. Nadal preferred not to remember that. The Aparoids were the sole reason he was so young and yet in command of a battle group. Everyone with more experience had been sent to fight. Most had died. Others had been infested, and promptly turned back the way they came to attack their former allies. Their devastation was still seen today, four years after their monstrous attack. Compared to them, the following Anglar attack was just an annoyance. Nadal had been part of the battle group that smashed the Anglar's final resisting fleet. It had been done almost without mercy from the Cornerians.

His current command was won just before the Anglars came, and it was his best yet. He was captain of the good ship _Aragosa,_ a fast attack carrier designed for quick deployment and fast response to enemy incursions, and in a pinch could, with its hanger and capital ship repair facilities hanging off the sides, serve as a mobile command and resupply center. She was a sleek, long, flat vessel and small for her class, with a crew of around five hundred, not including its complement of fighters and corvettes. She was perfect for hunting down remnants of Andross and the Anglars. But instead she was on guard duty in the middle of nowhere. A proud ship in an inglorious position. But he could not blame her for the inaction.

The last thing Nadal could be was disappointed in his ship or his crew. After fighting through so many wars in so little time, he was dreadfully accustomed to seeing new faces and recalling old ones only through holo-vids. The myriad conflicts at this point in Lylat's history had made the term "career soldier" chillingly accurate. And Nadal was above all else a career soldier. His life had been the military, starting at sixteen when he had used his family's wealth (garnered in an ironic double twist from peaceful merchant trades that profited from military research and development) to acquire a pilot's license, and his own training ship modeled after early Cornerian fighters. It had been a small, one-man craft that handled wonderfully and had a paint job that drove the girls wild.

Nadal had nearly killed himself and almost been thrown in jail when he crashed it at age eighteen on a dare to fly through the exposed infrastructure of an unfinished dry dock near Corneria's asteroid belt, but had been saved from the authorities by a recruiter coming by that very day. He had seen Nadal's skills, and knew at once that he could be a fine fleet officer with the proper training, and got him off of everything except some community service by getting him to join the military.

His parents of course had nearly bitten his head off, but had calmed down after realizing that space had always been an aspiration of Nadal's. They had wanted him to follow the family and ply new trading routes, but his thrill-seeking would only get him in more trouble with that kind of work.

After all he'd been through thrills were the last thing Nadal wanted.

Eventually he had become inspired to remain and better himself, turning slowly into the otter he was today. For fourteen years he had fought. For fourteen years he had given his life to the defense of his people, had lost friends and family to all the enemies of the universe, and avenged them all.

Fourteen years after all that had begun, he was reduced to dealing with security for ore miners and using his ship to maintain decrepit freighters.

While he was still brooding, his communicator beeped loudly from his desk. With a groan, he switched off the music and walked slowly towards it, bopping it lightly with one of his knuckles.

"Yes?" he asked in his quiet baritone voice.

"Sir, sorry to interrupt, but we have the reports from our frigates. They request that they talk to you personally."

There was a moment of quiet.

"I'll be right up."

-----------------------------

"Officer on deck!" barked Armand, the ship's tactical and security officer as Nadal entered, nearly blowing his eardrum out. The burly husky took great pains to make sure things were followed to the letter, especially when it came to protocol.

"At ease," he told his bridge officers, who settled back into their stations.

"Where are my frigates?" Nadal asked quickly.

"The _Vanquisher _and the_Whiplash _are holding position just outside sector A-15," replied Emery Van, _Aragosa's_ communication officer and resident cocker spaniel. "I'll put them up on screen if you like, sir."

"Do so." 

Nadal went to his chair at the center of the bridge, stationed just behind the hanger and repair facilities at the middle of the vessel. On the viewport in front of him appeared the visage of Tybus Ensign, the hare captain of the_Vanquisher._ She and her sister ship _Whiplash_ were the escort group for the _Aragosa._ Both were fine, Barrier-class frigates, large ships with a long, boxy, clumsy appearance, but a wide array of weaponry and the durability to allegedly get a full crew home with only half a ship. They were not designed to be ships-of-the-line, but everyone felt better having them along.

"Captain Ensign," Nadal said, never able to get over the awkwardness of having a rank (however outdated) for a name, "do you have a report on the anomalies outside Sargasso?"

"Not quite, Captain Ani," replied Tybus. Technically Nadal should be known as commodore, but the official memos had never gotten through. As the senior captain, he wielded authority enough. "We are certain, however, that these are not naturally occurring phenomena for this area. If we had a full complement of Corneria's science division we'd be able to get a better idea of what's going on out here… there are several gravitational distortions centered on specific areas of the Sargasso, even within the asteroid field, but their properties are unlike anything in our databases. We're not sure why, but I and Gibson have our crews at general quarters… just in case. Whatever they are, something deliberate is causing them."

"All right," Nadal said after a moment of thought, considering this all very strange. Ensign and Gibson, his fellow frigate captain on the _Whiplash,_ had good heads on their shoulders. They must have been getting very odd readings to sound general quarters.

"I'll send out a detachment of fighters to sweep anything your sensors can't reach. Update me if anything changes. _Aragosa_ out," Nadal said. Ensign nodded, and his face disappeared from the screen.

Nadal put his paw over his dark brown eyes, thinking, listening to the crew quietly attend to their duties. They had no scientists out here, only engineers. Nothing strange enough ever happened in Sargasso to warrant the attention of so called "professionals" like those snobby toads.

"Sir?" asked a voice next to him full of duty and modesty. The otter looked up to see Lieutenant Winchell Carlstaff, his second-in-command and chief of staff, standing next to him. The primly dressed fox, garbed in an impeccable Cornerian military uniform, was a fine officer and adviser. 

"Yes, Lieutenant," Nadal replied tiredly, waving his paw impatiently. "Come on, come on, out with it. Where do we stand?"

"Another whisper has been detected, sir, on the fringe of the field, near one of the larger anomalies."

"Yes, we've been getting them all morning," Nadal said levelly, his expression prudent.

"The difference, sir, is that this signal is stronger than before, and is confirmed to be a separate phenomenon from the gravitational anomalies."

"I can't think of anything that would actually be able to hide from all this scanning… but I can't ignore it. Send a few squadrons of fighters out to investigate. And make sure it's someone we can trust."

Lieutenant Carlstaff hesitated a moment before speaking in a very quiet murmur.

"General Hare believes it's only pirates."

Nadal shook his head. These anomalies and whispers on the fringes of Lylat's space had been going on for the better part of a week with disturbing frequency.

"General Hare of all people should remember things are never that simple in Lylat."

-------------------

_Doodle-beep-boo-dee-deep!_

Emery Wickliff's ears twitched at the disgustingly cheerful alarm. The arctic fox's room was dark and quiet. He had only just gotten to sleep six hours ago, and here he was being woken up again. Emery brushed a paw through his snow white fur, pressed and messy from hours of being slept on, and threw his legs over the side of his bed, groaning as the alarm continued to wheedle at him.

"Shut up!" he groaned desperately. It didn't do anything.

"Room service! Turn that thing off!" he shouted. Finally registering that the fox was awake, the computer turned off the alarm and told him what the news was as Emery stood up and went to get washed as quickly as he could. The only times he got woken up was when he had new orders.

"Good morning, Emery Wickliff," the pleasant female voice said. It was a far cry from the monotonous drone they kept hearing in the older fighters. "The time is 4:08 AM standard ship time. You have new orders. The clearance level is B-3. Would you like to hear them now?"

"Yes," Emery snapped.

"This is Wing Commander Liepner," spoke the heavy and modest voice of Emery's commanding officer. Emery's pale green eyes snapped open. "Gamma Lead Emery Wickliff. You are being ordered to head to the asteroid field in Sargasso Space Zone with all speed. Coordinates and mission data are attached to this message. You will be flying a routine patrol to investigate unknown contacts within the field. Whiskey and Haze squadrons will support. You have precisely one hour to prepare yourself. That is all."

"Open message attachment," Emery said as he stepped into the shower. As he listened to the coordinates he listed off all the ones he had memorized. These were way out on the fringe, not even near regular patrol lines. The miners knew it to be an unprofitable and unpredictable area. What on Corneria could there be that was causing these weird disturbances? It must have been serious if they were allocating fighters instead of bulky mining vessels to investigate.

Emery was only twenty three years old, but he had seen enough fights to know that the smallest of sensor contacts often turned out to be the biggest trouble. He was not particularly concerned, however. When was the last time he had a good scrap, anyway? He had, after all, joined the Cornerian armada to fight, and not to sit around in giant tin can waiting for miners to come up with some new complaint like needing new shipments of conduction coils or bugging him whenever he went on "shore leave" on one of the giant mining stations for news from the rest of the system. He felt as trapped as they did.

As he turned on the water and let it flow comfortingly over his snowy fur, he reflected back on the predicament he and the rest of the crew were stuck with. It was a real quandary, being soldiers and not fighting. Of course, the two years of peace after the Anglars had been a breath of fresh air in the stagnant pool of constant warfare, but it would only be so long before discipline began getting lax again and the armada began lowering its standards once more. Even Star Fox was beginning to settle down, if he remembered the last news update correctly. Star Fox... now there was a team to be envied. Heroes and cultural icons both, they were an inspiration to fighter pilots everywhere. It was one reason he didn't like hearing news about them. Real heroes distracted his men, and himself, from doing their jobs properly. How could they fight if they were always trying to measure up to another squadron that wasn't even in the military?

In any case, they were just here to do their jobs. Emery had joined to do his part in keeping Lylat safe from the monsters that kept trying to take it over. He had grown up in a small suburb outside Corneria's central residential district, and had grown up in the midst of rebuilding from Andross' first vile campaign. It had affected him to the point where he simply had enough, and had vowed 

to be as good a pilot for Lylat as he could be. Star Fox, after all, could not fight every battle out there. He just hoped that he would do his squadron proud and keep it together today, unlike so many other days during the Aparoids and Anglars when he had been unable to get them home intact. That was another drive of his. He wanted to get as many back home to their families after a profitable career as he could... in honor of the ones he could not.

Making sure to not let his shower take more than a few minutes, he quickly went over to his personal computer and data terminal and sent the signal to the rest of his squadron: _We have new orders. Prepare for anything._

-----------------------

Oddly enough his entire squadron was already waiting in the pilot lounge by the time he was out. Everyone, Emery included, was dressed in their flight suits. There were still twenty minutes until the mission officially had to start, and Emery wanted to grab a quick drink before he left. He went over to the bar and dropped down beside a young male red squirrel, finding it odd that the lounge was mostly empty save for his men. _Not all that surprising, actually,_ he told himself. _There are other lounges besides this one… and anyway, nobody hangs around in here unless there's a party or they're itching for a mission._

"You're up late," said the squirrel.

"Shut up, Calim," replied Emery, tail drooping to the ground. "I had a rough time yesterday and I only got six hours of sleep."

The squirrel shrugged, his own tail twitching with a mix of amusement and anxiety.

"Well, I just hope you're ready for the mission you had us assemble for. And hey… stay cool, all right? You've been jumpy all week."

Emery sighed and called the robotic bartender for some orange juice. Not exactly the mainstay of fleet drinkers, but he wasn't in the mood for a shock today. That and he had never been a heavy drinker. Calim remained at his side. Calim West was always at his side.

He and Emery had been friends for years. The day they had entered the Academy they had sworn that they would watch each other's backs, and never allow the other to become just another statistic on the ever-expanding lists of the dead. Calim had been eighteen and Emery nineteen when the Aparoids came. Now, with four years of bitter experience behind them, their bond had held true to the end.

"Sorry, Calim," Emery said at last after he had sipped a little of his juice down. "I guess I'm just feeling a little uptight being stuck way out here on this can…"

"The _Aragosa _is no mere 'can', Emery," came a gruff voice from behind the two. They turned to see a large, rough badger seated nearby, reading through a data pad with little actual interest in 

whatever he was seeing. His scraggly fur and craggy features served only to increase the demeaning tone of his gravelly voice.

"It is a self-contained command center and is responsible for saving countless lives during the Aparoid conflict," he continued. "Were it not for this ship, we would not even have a posting except somewhere irrelevant like Titania..."

"That wouldn't be so bad," remarked a young male raccoon reclining on a couch next to the badger, tearing his bright blue eyes from the monitor he had been watching random programs on. "It'd be better than flying all these dumb patrols for a bunch of miners that hate everyone else anyway. Besides, Jagger, you look like you need some time off… that stripe of yours is getting more grey than white nowadays."

"My age," Jagger replied in a low voice, for he always kept his age guarded, "is of no importance compared to your own, Abram. It's a wonder they allow youngsters like you into a fighter anyway…"

Abram Thewlis snorted and turned up the volume. The averagely built raccoon was only eighteen, just out of the Academy, and usually liked a good-natured argument. But his conflicts with Jagger always left the room somewhat tense. Emery and Calim kept an eye on him at all times during flight. His inexperience mixed with his impetuous nature was sure to breed something troublesome. The badger, Jagger Bandaloo, was nearly the raccoon's polar opposite. He had come into the military during the Aparoid conflict after a life of mercenary fighting for reasons only known to him, having lived profitably ever since the first war with Andross. Everyone was certain that "Jagger Bandaloo" was not his real name, but his imposing stature alone was enough to keep out questions. 

On the monitor Abram was watching, Emery and Calim saw something that caught their interest… it was a very familiar looking fox standing in front of an Arwing fighter, giving some sort of speech at a military base on Zoness.

"Hey, check it!" Abram said. "It's Star Fox!"

"It's _always_ Star Fox. They never show anything but Star Fox… I swear, they're getting worse than some of the holo-vid celebrities I see," a droll voice slurred opposite Abram's couch. That was Gary Lander. The slender, twenty two year old ferret had been with Emery and Calim since the Aparoid conflict. An ace pilot, and an even more reliable friend, he had his pride as a reason for disliking Star Fox and their flashy stealing of the spotlight from the rest of the fleet. This stood in stark contrast to just about every other living, breathing being in the Lylat system, such as Abram.

"I bet you're just jealous, Patch," he joshed, invoking the ferret's nickname for the actual patch of brown fur around one of his light brown eyes, which stood in stark contrast to the creamy white the rest of his face and front was. "All those credits they get, the publicity… the heroism."

"The credits they spend on the maintenance of their ship," Jagger interrupted, keeping his eyes on his data pad. "The publicity is a tight constraint on their personal lives, and they are driven by profit more than duty… all mercenaries are."

Abram snorted again.

"Right… it was just the lure of credits that got them to save our butts three times in a row and give people hope whenever we were close to getting enslaved or assimilated."

"I'm not denying what they've done," Jagger retorted. "I'm only saying that they are people like anyone else… and are flawed all the same."

"You call _that _flawed?" Abram cut in, and pointed at the monitor. Alongside Fox another vulpine had appeared, elegant and comely. It was none other than Krystal, famous love interest of Fox McCloud and the object of spite and envy from lonely females everywhere. Neither she nor her beau were talking about anything remotely interesting; they were just rehearsing their lines and looking good for the cameras, leaving plenty of time to simply gawk at the cultural icons. Emery shook his head at Abram's expression, one that he remembered well from his own days of puppy love. Thank goodness _those _were over.

"I call it a severe distraction," he cut in after a small nudge from Calim. "We're soldiers, not fanboys, Abram. And we have to get to the hanger, besides. You all got my call."

"Nothing serious, I hope?" Calim wondered aloud. Emery downed the last of his orange juice as heroically as he could and stood up.

"It's an excuse to fly… serious or not, I'll take that any day."

His fellow pilots could not agree more.


	2. Straight Into Action

"This is Gamma lead! All ships, report in," called out Emery. The arctic fox let his fingers fly over the control panel in front of him, feeling his ship respond genially to his touch. The new Starblazer fighters were certainly a far cry from the older Cornerian models. They were much less angular, featuring an elongated, ovular hull, and forward sweeping wings reaching from the tail to the front of the ship, and smaller stabilizing fins for the now standard G-Diffuser engines. Armed with improved control mechanisms pilots from the first war with Andross could only dream of, along with a large complement of lasers and Spectrum anti-warship bombs, they were a formidable match for anything inside the solar system, excepting the ever famous Star Fox team.

It was a smooth ride out of the_Aragosa's _hanger bay in the state-of-the-art fighter, and the rest of his squadron was close behind.

"Gamma two, all systems green," said Calim.

"Gamma three, good to go," sounded the voice of Abram Thewlis, as eager as ever.

"Gamma four, I'm here Gamma leader," announced Jagger.

"Gamma five, a-okay," Gary said curtly.

This was only Emery's second tour of duty as a squadron leader. Calim and Gary were the only two friends of his that had survived all the way through the combined Aparoid and Anglar conflicts, and he had been named a squadron leader halfway through. He couldn't shake the feeling that Jagger and Abram's places were still crammed by so many more faces than theirs. But obviously _someone_ thought he was doing his job well. Or, perhaps they thought he had done miserably, and that was why he was stuck out here with the _Aragosa._

"Hush, Emery," he told himself. "That thinking isn't going to help during the next dogfight." He distracted himself by running a needless diagnostic while he briefed his squadron.

"All right guys," he spoke into his helmet. "In case you weren't listening in the hanger, _Abram,_ our mission is to head out with Whiskey and Haze squadrons and scout out the asteroid field at the following coordinates. Command thinks there's something out beyond the range of our sensors. Echo and Papa squadrons are going to stay close to the frigates. There are reports of artificial anomalies in the area that have been going on all morning. Keep it tight, keep a lid on the boredom, and try not to nose-dive the floating mountains."

"I was listening!" Abram retorted, but he was quickly shushed by Jagger.

"Remember," Emery continued, "if something in the field is causing the anomalies, it'll probably be disguised as mining equipment. So keep an eye out for anything unusual."

There was a moment of silence before Jagger spoke up.

"Gamma lead, it may be prudent to distribute the regular scanning frequencies the miners use, so we can test strange signals against them," he muttered calmly. Emery coughed sheepishly and sent out the aforementioned specifications to his squadron.

"Yeah, yeah… uh… here it is." He mentally kicked himself for overlooking that, trying not to remember that kind of thinking had gotten good soldiers killed.

As they linked up with Whiskey and Haze squadrons, he felt a couple familiar voices filter into his helmet.

"You okay, Emery?" Calim said on a private channel.

"Your flying is screwier than normal," Gary glibly jibed.

"I'm fine," replied the arctic fox distractedly, his green eyes blinking rapidly as he realized he had let himself get off course with thinking again. "Just… just keep in formation, guys. I just want today to go smoothly."

---------------------------

The sweep began at six thirty, standard ship time. Emery found that flying through the relatively benign field was less stressful than he first thought. But that meant boredom could set in, make pilots weary, and increase the danger. At least they had their scanning to keep them busy, but the constant interference they were getting from the ores within the asteroids meant they had to fly close to anything they found, often dangerously so, and it was more often than not a simple confusion between echoes and real mining scanners and sensors that kept track of asteroid movement.

Abram had the most trouble, and had once nearly panicked everyone when he clipped his wing on a large rock. Only the auto-correction gyroscopes in the G-Diffuser engine kept him from smashing into Gary. After apologizing profusely and getting angry when Jagger began lecturing him, the mission again fell into monotony.

It went on for two hours straight, but the fighters were nowhere near the center of the action. The_Whiplash,_ holding position on the edge of the field, was keeping a close eye on the anomalies themselves. Her captain, Gibson, was getting some very strange readings as time went on.

"Sir," his scanning and telemetry officer said around nine o'clock, "the anomalies have spiked in strength. They're starting to affect the drift of the asteroids around them."

"Any idea on where they're coming from?" Gibson asked.

"None, sir," replied the officer. Gibson was beginning to feel nervous. He came over to the officer's monitor and watched the readings. They were definitely getting more powerful, and this worried him greatly, as they still couldn't detect where they were coming from. What if they became dangerous to the mining field? Billions of credits' worth of revenue was generated here 

on a monthly basis. Having to abandon it for something relatively small would be shameful to whoever ordered it. But this was quickly turning into something dangerous.

Emery suddenly received a call from the _Whiplash._ It was Captain Gibson.

"All fighters, have you detected anything out of the ordinary?"

Negative reports flowed in from the other squadrons. Emery sighed as he responded in kind. If they didn't find anything soon, they'd have to call all the way back to Fortuna or some other civilized place to get some scientists working out here. And then there'd be trouble.

He looked up and around at the asteroids, which were beginning to show signs of erratic drift.

"It's getting a little tight in here, guys," he advised. "The asteroids nearer the anomalies are doing a little dance. Keep your heads up."

"Copy, Gamma lead," said his squadron.

Back on the bridge of the _Whiplash,_Gibson had contacted Nadal.

"Captain," he said, "the anomalies are getting worse. We've had sudden spikes in their gravitational pull all around. If this keeps up they'll begin affecting flight patterns across Sargasso within the hour."

Nadal nodded slowly, observing everything from the safety of distance and a bigger ship. In the end whatever happened here was mostly his decision, but he would not allow himself to get bogged down by confusion stemming from a simple gravity well.

"I'll contact the foremen on the mining stations," he said. "They need to know about this. As for you, Gibson, contact Ensign and pull your ships back from the anomalies. This could get serious very quickly. And tell your engineers-"

"Captain!" shouted an officer on Gibson's vessel. "Contacts! Multiple contacts! Telemetry indicates they are going to enter Sargasso space around the anomalies in ten, nine…"

"Erin," Nadal said calmly to his own telemetry specialist, "I want confirmation on those contacts."

"Unidentified contacts confirmed," replied Erin, a stout hedgehog to his left. "I count two dozen capital class ships based on mass. They are decelerating from extremely high speeds outside of any warp signatures… they should be torn to pieces, but…"

"Armand, sound general quarters!" Nadal commanded.

"Aye, captain!" replied tactical officer Armand. The husky relayed the command to the rest of the vessel. An alarm went ringing throughout the ship as crewmembers raced to their assigned stations, preparing the ship for a fight. Deck officers hurried back and forth.

Nadal remained unfettered. He had been rather hoping for something like this. It was better than disciplining drunken freighter pilots.

"Unknown contacts are confirmed to be space vessels of some kind," reported Erin. "They are entering Sargasso space."

"Gibson," Nadal said quickly. "You and Ensign return to the _Aragosa._ Take up a flanking position and keep your crews ready."

It was, however, a little late for that. Gibson and Ensign suddenly found their ships completely surrounded. The anomalies leaped upwards exponentially in power, dragging in an entire fleet of alien vessels, unseen before in the Lylat system. They did indeed enter near the gravity wells, their sheer presence inspiring confusion and panic amongst the mining stations that only now detected their presence. Despite the fact that the alien ships for now did not show signs of overt hostility, the war-torn Lylatians had only one thing in the backs of their minds: invasion.

The _Whiplash _and _Vanquisher_ were in no mood to stick around. Dodging giant ships that lurched out from the depths of unknown space, equal in size to the largest Cornerian vessels, they fled at full power to the safety of their command ship.

-----------------------------------

"Oh my stars," muttered Calim as the alien fleet burst into Lylat in the manner of a thief busting down a doorway. Sheltered in the asteroid field, they could only drift haplessly around the perimeter of the incursion until they received orders.

"What in space are they?" asked Abram, his mouth gaping. It was a fitting question.

They were cylindrical ships for the most part, the larger vessels sporting concentric rings around their hulls on giant support struts jutting from their surfaces. They looked like miniature space stations, built from mostly improvised and ramshackle parts. Emery could find no answer to Abram's question, and the rest of his squadron was similarly dumbfounded. These vessels, however, did seem to be centered around several smaller, more simplistic looking craft, which looked remarkably more like scanner arrays than actual ships. Emery did not concern himself with such intricacies, however. He was too astonished by the fact that an entirely alien race had suddenly happened upon the Lylat system in one of its most remote regions of space.

It was then he noticed another group of Cornerian fighters outside the asteroid field, beyond the two frigates that were pulling away with all speed. His HUD told him it was Haze squadron.

"Haze lead," he said slowly into his communicator. "Haze lead, this is Gamma lead. Ahh, you're looking like you're getting close to those… things. Suggest you pull back and await orders from _Aragosa._"

"Copy that," replied Haze lead. "We will form up on your wing, Gamma. Just got orders to return to-"

Suddenly, Haze squadron wasn't there anymore. In its place were several quickly expanding balls of fire and debris. It had happened almost too fast for Emery to register, and shock hit him as he realized what happened. From one of the larger ships a weapon had powered up and been unleashed, its superior firepower normally reserved for larger vessels easily swatting down the puny fighters in front of it.

Emery took another moment to realize the truth. The strangers were dangerous.

"Gamma squadron!" he shouted, shaking everyone from their reveries. "Form up! Full throttle! We're heading back to base, now! Move it!"

The order came almost too late. From the fronts of the larger ships, crescent shaped fighters poured out by the dozens, seeking out targets among the asteroids, and finding them among the defenseless mining craft. Proximity alarms across the perimeter of the Sargasso Space Zone went crazy, and the whole area began quickly devolving into chaos as the so far silent invaders began a coordinated extermination of local Lylatians. Emery looked up in helpless awe as the larger ships began targeting the frigates, turning beams of energy on their exposed flanks that burned like lightning. As they fled through the asteroid field, he saw the powerful weaponry concentrate on specific points on the frigates, battering away at their shielding and boiling away the layers of concussion armor as they sought the vital systems beneath. The_Whiplash_ was taking the brunt of the beating as she and her sister ship sent back sporadic and mostly ineffective return fire.

And then they had problems of their own.

"Fighters! Coming from angels high!" shouted Calim.

"I see them. I see them!" Abram said in a panic.

"Stay in formation!" Emery shouted. "We'll keep to the asteroid field as much as we can."

"Emery!" said Calim. "The_Aragosa_ is practically on the other end of the field!"

"We'll make it," the arctic fox responded as calmly as he could. "We have no other choice."

Puzzled, Calim glanced over to the mining stations, and saw why they had no other escape routes. The crescent fighters had descended upon the stations, and they were making a mess of things. Freighters caught in dock were already burning. The invaders were on a killing spree, mercilessly gunning down everything they could find, and then turning their guns on the stations themselves. Lasers and rail guns traded fearsome, silent salvos. The utter quiet of the flashing lights and explosions lent an eerie quality to the battlefield. Calim could see most of the explosions were from the stations themselves. The point defense systems on those stations would not hold the enemy off forever.

"Gamma two! Watch it!" barked Jagger. Laser tore across the front of Calim's fighter, and the squirrel shoved downwards on his control module. Gamma squadron was broken apart as a large group of fighters separated from the main body and began hunting this more worthy and sturdy prey.

"Break off! Do not engage; there's too many! Into the asteroids!" ordered Emery as he hit the afterburners. Where had they come from? Why were they doing this? The questions raced his ship through the asteroid field as he looped over and around the giant rocks, dodging the concentrated laser fire of his pursuers.

The overwhelming assault had turned what once was a normal patrol into a scramble for survival. Emery had just enough time to wonder if he was handling the situation correctly before laser fire raked over his starboard wing.

At that point, instinct took over.

---------------------------------------

On the bridge of the _Aragosa_ in the middle of the monstrous surprise attack Captain Nadal was also assaulted by chillingly familiar memories as the alien craft began their onslaught.

It had been on Fichina fourteen years ago that he faced similar odds. Voices and pictures from memory ran through his head at breakneck speed, mingling with the desperate transmissions flooding in from the besieged stations.

"_Contact! Venomian fighters coming through the atmosphere! Capital ships inbound!"_

"There are hundreds of them! They're everywhere!"

"_Someone help! They're all over me!"_

"_I'm being destroyed! Help me! HELP!"_

"-all over the place!"

"_- overwhelmed. Pull back-"_

"Where's our cover! We have civilians on board! We're dying!"

"_Someone! Get them off us! Please, we're a civilian transport!"_

"_Venomian ships inbound at two-ten! They're cutting off our escape route!"_

"_Nadal! What are your orders!"_

"_What do we do, sir!"_

"_We need orders! We need to fight back!"_

"Lieutenant," Nadal snapped, blotting out the deluge of voices. "Give me an update on the enemy's strength." He was captain here, he reminded himself. This was not Fichina. This would not be his disaster.

"Several capital class ships, many carrying fighters. Over two hundred fighter signatures. We have more anomalies off starboard!" announced the primly dressed fox. "It looks like they're pulling in reinforcements."

"They don't _need_ reinforcements," Nadal countered from his chair, able to see the enemy, whoever they were, was easily overpowering the meager defenses thrown up before them by the miners. "They're just making sure none of us get away. Where are my frigates?"

Emery Van replied. "Gibson and Ensign are reporting severe damage to their engines. With the amount of firepower being thrown at them they'll be disabled in the next few minutes. The _Whiplash_ is taking most of the beating, sir."

"Do they have warp capability?"

"Affirmative."

Nadal hesitated for a split second. 

"What about the miners?"

"They're calling for help, sir. Every freighter that wasn't already inside this sector is fleeing at top speed. The ones inside have either been disabled or are under heavy attack."

Nadal nodded quickly. This was just like Fichina. Fourteen years ago. Except this time he had control of the situation. He would not allow this to become a rout.

"Scramble all our corvettes and have them establish a perimeter at coordinates A-4, X-Niner, Z-Niner-Ten. We need to give our boys an avenue of escape. Tell the_Vanquisher_ to head for those same coordinates and provide fire support. The _Whiplash_ will micro-jump to our pre-determined fallback point. Launch the fighters, and have them engage the enemy strike craft head-on, and guard any fleeing ships. Keep the bombers back. They'll never survive with that kind of firepower being thrown around. Prioritize. Protect escape transports first and ore freighters second."

He could feel the air grow tense as he spoke that last command. He had little choice. Women and children, whole families would be on the transports. The miners knew the risks of working such 

a remote area, and their freighters could take more of a beating. But Nadal could rationalize all he wanted; he was willing to sacrifice some lives over others and that was that.

Such decisions were the price one paid for command.

"What about the mining stations?" Carlstaff asked. "There are hundreds of people on each station alone. And there were at least a dozen stations."

Nadal closed his eyes and breathed in sharply before replying.

"We do not have the resources to guard every station. There are only three in our sector. Tell the rest to begin evacuation procedures immediately. All fleeing craft will rendezvous with the _Whiplash._ Tell her to get to work sending out distress buoys. I want us doing the same."

"Aye, captain."

"Helm," Nadal said to their navigator Tycho Barker, a husky like Armand, "move us back to guard our frigates' retreat, and then shift to intercept the new contacts."

"Sir," said Carlstaff. "I must advise you that we will be overrun within the hour. Our shields will not withstand a constant bombardment from so many capital ships."

"I am aware of our current odds, and I will do my best to fulfill my duty within them," Nadal replied in his ever-calm and quiet voice, not even looking back to his lieutenant. "We are here to protect as many lives as we can, not the hardware that lets us do it."

"Affirmative, sir."

Nadal watched as his crew hurried to obey his orders. It was thrilling to command such power, but calming to know that his crew would obey his orders to the letter. The torrid calm of battle didn't sway him like it used to; with time had come a sense of purpose and responsibility. He had faced Andross, Aparoids, and Anglars alike, and survived them all. He was captain Nadal Corvus Ani, and he would not be shaken.


	3. Opening Salvo

A/N: It's the first major battle scene, folks, and I hope you like fighting, because this whopper of a dogfight takes up the whole chapter!

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"Gamma squadron, give me an update!" Emery snapped into his communicator, his voice inside the confines of his helmet making his ears ring. Outside, lasers flashed by his cockpit and flared up whenever they struck shielding. The crescent fighters intent on hunting him down were not only decent shots, but their ships seemed just as maneuverable as his own. It was all that Emery could do to keep his enemies from getting a clear shot, pushing his G-Diffuser system to the limit as he careened and zig-zagged through the asteroid field. It was to the credit of the attackers that only one of them had met his death through a collision with one of the giant rocks.

"Gamma squadron!" he repeated, wincing as his ship shook from a near missile blast that impacted on an asteroid just beside him. Debris pelted his ship as he heard his squadron- his men- send out hurried reports.

"This is Gamma three!" shouted Abram. "I got… five on my tail! Six… seven more coming from above! Oh, dang, they're everywhere!"

"Keep it together, Abram. I got you," Emery heard Gary say very calmly. It was no surprise that the ace ferret was the only one who had been able to veer away from his pursuers long enough to provide cover for his wingmen.

As Calim and Jagger reported similar situations to Abram, Gary swooped upwards towards the raccoon's position, slightly forward of Abram's position.

"Abram! Change to negative declination 38, now!"

The raccoon wordlessly heeded Gary's command and began descending at a shallow angle, his attackers following with confidence only to find themselves barreling right into Gary's field of fire. He unleashed a flurry of laser fire and missiles that streaked out from under Abram's ship, surprising the opposition and scattering them. His concentrated blasts managed to destroy one ship and send two more hurtling into the field, smoke and sparks streaming from their damaged vessels.

Gary was about to cheer his triumph into the communicator, when Abram opened fire just as he passed by above his cockpit. Behind him another crescent fighter was torn apart by the powerful weapons of Abram's Starblazer, apparently having come behind him undetected as he assisted Abram.

"Double whammy!" Abram crowed. "You owe me for that, Patch!"

"Dumb luck, kid," Gary replied curtly. "Watch those up above!"

"Cut the chatter!" Emery barked. "We're not done yet- whoa!"

Emery threw his paw up as something sparked and burst into a short lived flame on his upper starboard stabilizer. They'd gotten through his shields! An alarm whistled loudly. Emery spared a brief moment to sarcastically thank it for warning him after the fact.

"Shields down!" Emery reported. "They're all over me!"

Calim grunted in annoyance and pulled hard on his control module, attempting to boost towards Emery's position, but he was cut off almost immediately by a full wing of enemy fighters that forcibly turned him away with a barrage of laser fire, cutting his shields in half in moments. Jagger was nearby and attempted to relieve him, with Abram and Gary dealing with another group come to tangle with them.

Emery was on his own for now. He flicked a few switches and diverted more energy to his G-Diffuser and shield recharge battery. With the enemy right on his tail and his shields down, his armor would not take long to go. He hurtled behind a fast moving asteroid and gained a few precious seconds as the enemy fighters dispersed around it and took the time to regroup their formation. Desperate to keep them off his back until he could find safe haven, he rolled to the left, into a sharp hail of smaller asteroids and chemically unstable mineral dust. His shields were flickering back to life and barely managed to turn away the storm of radiating molecules and tiny, fast moving rocks.

Emery then quickly overloaded the charger on his shields, dispersing the sphere of energy away from the ship out into the dust and rocks around him and ionizing the entire cloud. His ship was bombarded with highly charged particles and rocks almost a meter across, the tough armor and vulnerable circuitry managing to hold its own as the EMP countermeasures kicked in. Emery glanced back to see if his plan had worked.

It had. The shielding on the crescent fighters, which had been at full power, suddenly erupted in a light show of sparks and colliding, high energy molecules. Blinded in the intense shower of lightning and thunder as their sensors went haywire from all the interference, they scattered quickly as Emery hit his afterburners and jetted outside the field.

His ship had taken a beating from that last move, and would need a moment to re-establish its renewable defenses, that being its shields, but he muttered a curse as he realized his improvised escape tactic had knocked out a few of the circuits needed for his ship to communicate with itself. He'd have to guide the ship's repair systems manually… but then his sensors warned him of more contacts incoming. His stomach sank with a leaden feeling of dread as the computer told him the signatures were completely hostile. His squadron was still tied down with their own overwhelming odds. The enemy was so fast and so many, and he had paused just long enough for them to converge…

He raised his head to see his final moments descend upon him. A squadron of crescent fighters hurtled down towards him out of the asteroid field. He could even see the pinpoints of light begin to build as their lasers charged for the last volley. Before the arctic fox could even activate his communicator, he knew he was finished.

But then, oddly, the killing blow never came. Laser fire had erupted from a group of new contacts with friendly signatures, filling the sky above him like a meteor shower. The enemy was forced to back off or face annihilation, and even then some were not quick enough, drowning in the silent barrage, their fragile ships collapsing, melting, and most satisfyingly, exploding. Emery closed his eyes and sighed with relief. Reinforcements had come at last.

"This is Wing Commander Eckhart of the 158th Ghost Speakers! Looks like you could use some help, Gamma lead!"

"Yeah… yeah!" Emery replied with a choked laugh. "You guys got here just in time! My ship is banged up and my squadron is still in the field!"

He felt himself swell with renewed vigor as dozens of Starblazer fighters streamed overhead, many of them emblazoned on their hulls with the insignia of the Ghost Speakers, the best group of fighters on board the _Aragosa,_ and many of whom had survived the entire Aparoid conflict, some even harkening back to Andross and the First Lylat War Their sign was a simple arrangement consisting of a simplistic, ghostly canine wrapped around a sphere containing a bloody sword, but that stark image filled his heart with fire as the experienced pilots turned the tables against the attackers, wiping out the small group that had come after him.

Two more full wings were following close behind, the 35th Red Suns, and the 101st Steel Brothers. All of their pilots were ready to mix it up with the impetuous invaders. Being outnumbered, after all, only made things interesting.

Emery Wickliff jetted back towards the field in the wake of his allies, praying he was not too late to bring his men back home again.

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_Is it hard enough for you yet, Captain?_ Nadal asked himself in thought as the _Aragosa _traded shots with one of the lead battleships of the invaders. The exchange was fast and furious, new targets cropping up every second for the gun crews to answer with every weapon they had available. Though she was but a carrier, the _Aragosa _was designed to defend herself when necessary, and sported three Vanguard beam weapons, massive energy cannons that fired single, continuous streams of destructive, super-heated plasma each. They were the tops of their line in such weaponry and could carve up other capital ships in the manner of exacting and precise chefs slicing a fish.

Unfortunately their enemy seemed to possess lesser versions of this same kind of weapon, and each battleship, as Nadal was calling them, seemed to be armed with at least two to every vessel. Not particularly good odds, but apparently they were not expecting such a fierce counterattack from what looked at first glance to be a support vessel of some kind.

"We have forced one of their capital ships to pull back towards their lines. The _Whiplash _and _Vanquisher_ have retreated to their respective safe zones," reported Carlstaff.

"How are our guns faring?" Nadal asked the fire control officer.

"They are operating at full capacity, maintaining a steady rate of fire. Cooling measures are holding. Point defense systems and all other weapons are working at optimum efficiency, but three of our port missile launchers have been disabled." was the reply.

Nadal went to the communicator at his side.

"Damage control, what's the update?"

"We have eight bulkheads down near the bridge, sealing them now. Minor concussion damage across the port side. Their beam weapons are considerably inferior to ours, but they have managed to knock out most of the bow section of C-Deck. Nothing serious as long as our armor holds up."

Nadal spared a moment to curse the faulty shield generators. A lucky shot from one of the smaller enemy vessels in the opening shots of the engagement had caused some kind of problem, and now they were failing to relay power fast enough to recharge their essential shields, so they were being forced to do without for now. They had only been fighting for a few minutes. Once the other capital ships got their guns into position, it'd be over them…

"The new contacts have arrived in Sargasso at X-54 Z-135," reported Erin the hedgehog. "They are confirmed to be enemy vessels."

"Damage control," Nadal warned as the first major hit of the day made the ship shudder almost imperceptibly, "we need those shield generators and we need them now. If their beam weapons focus enough on us…"

"Working on it captain," was the brusque, strained reply, a different voice than the first, "just give us two more minutes."

Two minutes was more than enough for concentrated beam fire to tear open the _Aragosa_, Nadal reflected. The armor was performing admirably, but he'd preferred not to take his precious ship home with scars.

Two more beam weapons lashed over the surface of _Aragosa, _boiling away the special compounds in the armor and leaving giant gashes wherever they went. Fighter-bombers with a much more traditional shape than their crescent counterparts zipped back and forth across the ship's hull, firing incessantly (if somewhat ineffectively) even as they were picked off one by one by the fury of _Aragosa's _point defense systems. The damage was mostly superficial to a ship of _Aragosa's _size, but they could not last forever.

"Report, first major kill of the day," Carlstaff said with a small smile. "One of our Vanguards has destroyed what appeared to be a heavy frigate."

"Sir!" shouted Armand. "One of the battleships has turned her cannons on us again. We're becoming more of a target here."

_Maybe,_ Nadal answered his own earlier question sardonically, _if just one more showed up, it'd start getting difficult._

"Pull us out of the main line of fire," Nadal ordered navigator Tycho. "I want us in an easy position to retrieve our fighters. Where are the enemy's reinforcements?"

"Closing in fast, sir. They'll be on us in ten minutes."

"This is damage control!" came yet a third voice from Nadal's communicator. "That last beam attack pulverized most of the fire coordination center for our under-side torpedo batteries! They'll be offline until we can re-route! We're venting atmosphere all across G-deck and those bombers of theirs are messing things up! Our port hanger bay is really taking a beating without the shields!"

Nadal remained calm through the chaos surrounding him. His crew knew how to handle mitigating damage suffered, though with two battle groups closing in on a lone carrier it was only a matter of time before all their efforts were for naught. But he couldn't abandon the miners until he was sure as many got away as could possibly get away. He would fight on and hold until his position became entirely untenable. He was aware that the enemy had not committed all of its forces to battle. They were coming at them piecemeal in the way of capital ships, and it mystified him. They had enough firepower to knock out the _Aragosa _in a reasonably small amount of time, but they were being very slow and intermittent in how they were focusing their heavy guns. That kind of good fortune would not last them, though the _Aragosa _made it clear she would fight until forcibly removed from battle.

Despite the ship's bravery, the enemy closed in regardless and stepped up their attack, sensing the paltry defensive force could not keep up their frenzied countering for much longer.

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Even as the tides began to turn for their capital ships, Emery Wickliff and his squadron found the enemy's strike craft were paling in comparison to the superior Starblazers. The Ghost Speakers and accompanying wings were playing havoc with the enemy. They had the advantage in numbers and speed, but their ships were comparatively lightly armed and armored.

If it weren't for the fact that innocent people were dying all around them, Emery might have even sworn some of the other pilots were having fun wreaking destruction like this, their pent-up frustrations lending them that vaguely condescending air and super-charged energy all fighter pilots required to be at the top of their game.

Emery and his squadron had finally regrouped, to the arctic fox's infinite relief, and met up with their own wing, the 56th Fire Starters. While the Ghost Speakers and Steel Brothers met the enemy fighters head on, the 56th and 35th were tasked with defending the civilian vessels. It was a near impossible proposition. The sheer amount of ships in the confined spaces around the mining stations made simple maneuvering a risky business, and Emery and his fellow soldiers could only be in so many places at once. In the chaotic dogfights raging all about them, it was all Emery could do to keep his squadron together, lest they lose cohesion, and so any chance of victory and survival.

"Gamma four, missile away," Calim announced as a homing shot plowed into yet another enemy fighter. "These pilots have little respect for teamwork," he remarked as he passed the rapidly dissipating fireball.

"They're used to fighting as individuals," Jagger explained, his voice humble and quick despite the obvious stress they were all under. "They break apart and re-form units on the fly. Change tactics on a whim. Sloppy… agh!" He was interrupted by a stray laser shot nearly blinding him as it impacted his shields next to the cockpit.

"Cut the chatter!" Emery ordered for perhaps the fifth time in this fight alone. "I see new enemy craft. They look more like ours… scanners say they're bombers of some kind. Gamma squadron, on me! We need to intercept those guys before they can get the heavy ordinance to bear!"

He switched to a broadcasting channel so the entire wing could hear him.

"Fire Starters, this is Gamma lead! Bombers inbound, repeat, bombers inbound from the following coordinates…"

He punched in the attack vectors as Wing Commander Liepner advised him.

"Roger, we copy, Gamma. Take them out! I'm sending Whiskey and Merlin squadrons to support you. We'll keep the fighters occupied."

"Roger! Gamma, on me, head for the group marked 'Sierra.' Pick targets and fire at will. If those bombers reach the civvies, they're done for."

He opened a channel to the small civilian freighter that was pulling away with all speed from the battle. It was leading a handful of fragile, almost unarmed corvettes. Their crews would be panicking, not focusing on a fight. It was a burden to keep them safe when they wouldn't even contribute to the flow of battle, but it was one Emery willingly shouldered.

"Attention transport group Omega," he said calmly, "this is Gamma lead from the 56th Fire Starters. Be advised, you have bombers on an intercept course. Keep to your current heading; we'll take them out."

"Roger, Gamma lead!" said a very stressed female voice on the other end. "We will keep to this course! We won't last more than a few hits from those bombers! Please… we have families on board."

Emery seemed almost shocked by the pleading tone of her voice. They must have been really shaken up by the sudden ferocity of the attack. He had to remind himself that they weren't trained for events like this. It only served as that much sharper of a reminder of what he had to do to get them out of this mess.

"Don't worry," he said gently, as reassuringly as he could, "We'll take care of you." He then began issuing orders.

"Abram, Jagger, you two get the fighters gathering around the bombers. Calim, Gary, follow my flight path. Whiskey, Merlin!"

"Yeah, Gamma?" replied Merlin one.

"Suggest attack pattern Saffron. We don't want to give them a chance to launch any torpedoes."

"Roger Gamma. We're coming up now."

"Incoming fire!" shouted a pilot from Whiskey squadron. The three groups split apart suddenly, all the pilots following pre-planned attack patterns according to Saffron. Abram and Jagger flew straight in with several others to scatter the enemy fighters, veering away at the last minute and drawing most of the individualistic ships away, while the greater number including Emery, Calim, and Gary completed their corkscrew turns and came back nearly on the tails of the bombers, who were set upon by a hail of laser fire as their remaining escorts sheared away to intercept. But before Emery could line up his killing shots, the entire operation was set upon by yet another group of enemies. They had come out of the dark of their own accord, leaving holes in their own defenses, but Like Jagger had said… sloppy. But still deadly in its own right.

Miraculously, nobody had simply collided with each other in the melee, but the Lylatians' numbers had decreased appreciatively as they were forced to meet the new threat.

Soon, Emery and Gary were left with a handful of fighters still able to pursue the bombers, which they did with gusto. The distance between the transports and bombers was closing rapidly, and the pilots would waste no time in launching their bombs once they had a clean lock.

Emery and his remaining comrades did not hesitate in pouring laser fire into the engines of the bombers, who to their credit remained on course even as they fell one by one, their pitiful rear-mounted turrets unable to even phase the shielding of the Starblazers.

When only five were remaining, they launched their ordinance and scattered to safety. Emery told his wing mates to ignore them and attack the large torpedoes directly. They were slow and clumsy weapons, and the counter-missiles on the Starblazers simply swatted them out of the sky in a matter of seconds. Emery smiled as he and the rest of the team pulled up and around to assist the others in fighting off the strike craft.

It was then he heard a desperate message in his communicator from the lead transport.

"New wing of bombers! Coming from devils low! They've already launched their missiles!"

"Everyone still with me, bank right, now!" Emery shouted as he hurled his ship around and blasted the G-Diffuser engines, hoping, praying… but it was too late.

One of the transports suddenly erupted into flames, starting from the bow and working its way to the middle of the ship as the high explosives and energy based weapons crashed into the fragile vessel, its hull blown away and vaporized as the entire superstructure collapsed and the remaining pieces hurtled into the void. Emery's heart clenched in his chest as he urged more power from his engines. A second ship suddenly saw its port side raked by high power torpedoes, its flight path disturbed by the sheer power of the munitions slamming into it.

"No, no, _no!"_ Emery shouted as he zoomed around the wreckage of the first transport, blowing past the debris and centering on the enemy with a vengeance, with Gary and the rest of the strike force close behind.

_No more of _that! Emery screamed in his head as he tore the lead bomber apart with his own guns, then launching a fully charged homing shot and scoring two more kills as it rammed into a second bomber and wiped out its engines, sending it spinning into a third. He then saw a trio of torpedoes streaking towards the lead freighter, the one who had asked him for help at the outset of the fight. His jaw set, he boosted his engines to the absolute limit, and unleashed a flurry of lasers, drowning the offending missiles in his anger.

_There,_ Emery thought. _You've been taken care of._

Gary and the others were hot on his tail, focusing on the bombers themselves before more torpedoes could be launched. The enemy attempted to disperse, but it was not enough for them. In less than a minute all that was left of the small strike force was charred pieces of metal.

"Commander!" the fox heard Calim say. "Bomber group 'Sierra' is completely destroyed. But we're having a hard time keeping those fighters off our backs and the transports _and _the stations at the same time! We can't help everyone!"

"This is our convoy, so we're sticking to it!" Wing Commander Liepner shot back. "Gamma lead, that second wing of bombers gone?"

"Aren't coming back, sir!"

"Good! Stay down there and direct the pilots with you for now. They wanted us after that first group so they could make a one-two punch at the transports. We'll keep topside the convoy and make sure no more distractions come your way. We've lost enough people for one day, is that clear?"

"Yes, sir!" Emery said with as much gusto as he could muster. One transport was dead, with four remaining, and one of those grievously injured, but still barely able to fly. Emery was surprised at how fragile they really were… but then remembered they were simple civilian transports, mere tubs designed to get people from point A to B. Nobody had built them with the expectation they'd be under fire.

But how many had they lost? Emery didn't want to know; it gave him an all too familiar sinking feeling when he tried to consider it. This whole situation did not sit well with him. Why would they move so fiercely against a mining colony with next to no military power as their first attack?

"Transport Omega 3!" he asked of the vessel that had been hit after the first one went down. "What's it look like where you are, buddy?"

"Ahh, we're in bad shape, Gamma lead," came the harried response. "Life support's barely functioning, half the ship had to be sealed to prevent atmosphere leak… there were still people on those decks…"

"Keep it together, Omega 3," Emery said brusquely. "Your engines are undamaged. Get what's left of that ship out of here."

"A… Alright," was the simple reply. Satisfied, Emery returned to his vigil, which was almost immediately broken by another group of enemy fighters. They moved to intercept, but Emery worried constantly about the state of the convoy even as he downed another enemy fighter with an expressionless state of mind. This was not a fair fight by any stretch of the term. They were hardly denting the enemy forces, and the mysterious invaders were giving as good as they were getting. They didn't have much in the way of standard battle practices from what Emery could see, but their coordination when they did form an attack was nigh impeccable. They were slowly tightening the noose with their advantage in numbers, and eventually the _Aragosa _was going to be pushed back. And then whoever was still here would be buried alive under sheer weight of numbers, and the monstrous power that the bigger ships could bring to a fight.

"We're in the _Vanquisher's _field of fire!" sounded the voice of the female on the lead freighter, and a sweeter voice Emery had not heard in years. Their part in defending the vulnerable convoy was at last over.

The _Vanquisher, _remaining outside the bulk of the battle to avoid being swarmed by fighters, finally opened up with its main cannons and anti-fighter defenses as the convoy approached, ripping up the enemy strike craft with a vengeance. Apparently the gunners on the _Vanquisher_ had been itching to get a good shot at the enemy. Their counter-attack was so zealous Emery had his squadron pull back to avoid friendly fire. It seemed to be smooth sailing for the convoy from there.

"We're clear of the fight!" said the lead freighter's unknown officer as they shuttled past the safety of the _Vanquisher _and her escort corvettes. Emery could hear the joyful relief in her voice. There were still hundreds of people who had already died, and hundreds more would die before the fight was over, but this small group had been preserved, and Emery knew that was all he could ask for.

"Thank you, Gamma lead!" said the unknown female. "Looks like you took care of us after all!"

Ah. That was what made it worth it.

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"Sir! The enemy has pulled up more ships! The new contacts are coming in fast and launching fighters!"

Nadal clenched his paws into fists, breathing in slowly. The _Aragosa _was now on the retreat. Her shields were back online, but not until after several more decks suffered severe (if superficial) damage, and dozens of crewmen had been killed or wounded. The fight was over, he realized. They had done all they could. If they didn't retreat now in an orderly fashion they would all be massacred.

There were still miners on those stations. But there were still soldiers on his ship! How to make a decision?

"How are the escape convoys doing?" he asked.

Emery Van replied. "Badly, sir," the spaniel replied, a note of despondency in his voice. "I'm getting negative reports across the board. None of them are getting away fully intact, and our fighters are spread thin."

"Sir," Armand added, "We've launched over three-quarters of our available ships and the enemy _still _outnumbers them. We sit here any longer and it's only a matter of time. We've taken casualties. They're going to get worse very soon."

Nadal closed his eyes and thought for just a moment. He hoped he would be able to forgive himself after this.

"Lieutenant," he said quietly. "Is there any chance we can save more miners than we already have?"

"With all due respect, sir," Carlstaff replied dutifully, "I am of the opinion that everyone who was going to get away already has."

"Very well," Nadal said without hesitation. "We cannot allow this battle group to be destroyed; we're the first and last line of defense for this part of Lylat. We've done all we can here. Sound the retreat. Get our boys back. Tycho, get us out of here. What's the status of our frigates? Get me Ensign!"

The hare's face popped up on the main view screen.

"Report," Nadal ordered gruffly.

"Sir, we have just escorted another group of transports out of the battle zone. The _Whiplash _is herding them towards a jump node outside Sargasso where they can get back to Lylat proper, but for some reason, the enemy is giving no signs of pursuit. They're ruining everything within their immediate sphere of influence, but everyone who slips out of it… they're all but ignoring them, sir. It's frankly somewhat disturbing, sir."

"Mmm." Nadal was thinking hard. Did the enemy want something specific? Was it right to abandon the system without figuring out what it was? Would the enemy come after them if they stuck around?

"Ensign, I want you out of there. Get my corvettes back and then jump out to the fallback point. We'll rendezvous at another location I'll notify you about. Good job, soldier. Hop to it."

Ensign saluted and went to work.

"Sir," Nadal heard officer Gables, one of the fire control officers, warn him. The otter looked up to another screen left of the main viewer and saw that most of the capital ships from the enemy fleet had indeed broken off pursuit of the _Aragosa_ as she fled the fieldThey were turning their guns on the stations. Nadal watched, helpless, as the giant ships began the macabre work of dissecting the giant structures with their arsenals. Beam weapons ripped massive holes into their infrastructure, hulls buckled and fuel tanks and unstable ore containers detonated from the extreme heat. As the Lylatian fighters pulled out, the enemy chased them a short distance, but then joined their command ships in furiously bringing down the larger stations, completely ignoring the fighters they had once fought so single-mindedly. Nadal was both horrified and mystified at the odd behavior.

"New signatures," Erin announced once the _Aragosa _was no longer under direct fire and was collecting her fighters. "They appear to be launching dropships onto the stations."

It was true. The invaders waited until a station had gone dark, power cut off, and then swarmed it with smaller transport ships, doubtless carrying soldiers who were being disembarked into the gaping holes their capital ships had blasted into the stations. So they _were _searching for something. Nadal's more irrational side said they were simply hunting down survivors for sport. But they could not go back now. They would only be overwhelmed and destroyed.

"Record that," Nadal said distractedly. "Record everything. Are all our fighters on board?"

"Yes, sir," replied Armand. Nadal nodded. Three battleships were still on their tail, intent on either killing them or chasing them out of the system, menacing with their hot weapons and intent flight vectors.

"Tycho…" Nadal began.

"On it, sir," replied the husky. He heard the engines powering up. "Heading towards the secondary fallback point. All crew, brace for jump to subspace."

The engines glowed brightly as the immense power reserves from the generators cocooned beneath dozens of meters of thick armor plating were drawn up. The three remaining ships that pursued the carrier slowed their own velocities, decelerating as they saw that their quarry was not going to make a final stand. They watched in eerie, expectant silence as the _Aragosa _tore itself a gap in the fabric of space, and blasted into it, disappearing from all sensors. She was gone, and her chasers, inexplicably, did not follow, or even bother to try and track the path of the ship. They knew, however, that it was only a matter of time before the crew of that single brave ship discovered that there was nowhere to run to.

The _Aragosa _left behind the scene of the massacre that followed the conquest of the stations. They left behind hundreds of dead from the innocent miners, and had not recovered the bodies or spacecraft of its pilots who had fallen. They left behind the start of another invasion, another war, another new beginning. They did not look back.

Their bow was pointed firmly forward, to all the trials that lay ahead, and everyone on board knew that nobody could alter their course now.

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A/N: And... cut. I hope that was quite epic enough for you all. This is, after all, only the beginning. Thank you, Sir Raphael, for being the first reviewer. I must add that it was reading your work that first inspired me to begin my own take on what war is like in Star Fox.


	4. Ruminating

A/N: Ack! The disclaimer! Here we go, I almost forgot…

I do not own Star Fox or any of the characters, locations, memorabilia, etc., pertaining directly to the series. They are owned by whichever company owns them. All characters, locations, tech, memorabilia, etc., that are not in Star Fox and are featured in this story is copyright to me.

Prepare yourselves for action, folks. Being a military vessel (and not a bunch of lazy mercenaries :P) the _Aragosa_ can't very well sit back and watch Lylat get conquered. They'll be going nonstop until they've forced a more advantageous position, and we'll be with them every step of the way.

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The _Aragosa's _briefing room was always an uncomfortable place to be, despite its great size. The circular area was only designed to fit commanders and officers into chairs so they could listen to announcements and mission objectives, not lounge in comfort. Add to that the fact that this particular briefing was about whether or not the Lylat system had the capability to actually defend itself from an onslaught of alien ships that had attacked with warning or provocation, and could be all over the system by now for all the crew knew, and one would add up a large group of very fidgety and tense soldiers.

Lieutenant Carlstaff understood their anxiety, but as an officer he was paid not to show the same emotions. He and the rest of the command staff had to make sure that the ship ran smoothly and discipline did not falter so they could do their jobs and accomplish their missions. They wouldn't have the right to be called soldiers if they gave in to despair as easily as regular citizens.

He walked into the briefing room clutching a laser pen behind his back and wearing a mask of stoicism and calm, but his step and the way he held his shoulders had a note of clear urgency. The clearest sign of his agitation was tail, which flailed around behind him despite all his conscious efforts to control it. At least it still looked well groomed. All of the pilots had assembled as ordered (barring the dead from their first engagement), and so the fox went straight to business. He turned on the holographic projector at the front of the room, and the lights dimmed automatically to near pitch blackness. While the picture loaded, the plain aqua sphere the rest of the hologram would load on gave the lieutenant's face a sickly, pale pallor, which reflected how the rest of the crew felt at the moment. The first picture was a recorded video of the annihilation of the three mining stations the _Aragosa_ had left behind, after they had been picked clean by the enemy forces. Actual, physical descriptions of individual enemies were out of the question, as all the live specimens that they had caught a glimpse of were either robots, or organic creatures housed in some kind of exoskeleton.

What the cameras saw appeared to be bipedal, with back sweeping legs, skinny limbs attached to a sturdy barrel chest, and either elongated heads or sensory organs atop their bodies, as the video paused and enlarged a specific section of the now calm battlefield, showcasing a few of the enemy combatants as they jumped from a transport into the mining station _Thaddeus_. The distance was so great, the image being thrown up before the pilots had become quite fuzzy and nearly impossible to decipher.

"This is our first glimpse of the enemy," Carlstaff explained. "It was taken just a few hours ago as we were fleeing and is the only picture we can reasonably assume to be an enemy soldier, or droid, or some other apparatus that is used to invade a structure held by opposing forces for purposes of reconnaissance, assault, or study. Other than this, we can tell you absolutely nothing about what we faced back at Sargasso other than the combat capabilities of the ships they used to attack us. The motives of this new race are unknowable. All we know is that they are extremely hostile and willing to engage and kill Lylatian forces and civilians. We do not know why they spared us and did not hunt us down, or why they only killed those within their immediate reach. We believe they were looking for something, but we have no idea what. Unfortunately this conversation is better left to scientists, and is not our immediate concern."

He was right. The _Aragosa _was a military vessel first and foremost, and had to concentrate on defeating the enemy before it could get in-depth about understanding them. Right now it was hurtling through subspace towards its next destination, which the lieutenant was about to explain.

"_Horizon _base and its accompanying mining outposts _Thaddeus _and _End Run_ have been destroyed. For reasons unknown the enemy has only occupied the remaining mining stations. Sargasso Space was evacuated before this occurred, and has been conquered by the enemy. Lylat as a whole is in the process of being overrun in its entirety," the lieutenant said bluntly. The image switched to an overview of Lylat space. The last known intelligence on enemy positions and incursion points came up as blinking red dots. They surrounded the entire outer orbit of Lylat, enveloping Venom, Sectors Z and X, and Papetoon in hostile signatures. Near the middle of the gathering, Emery Wickliff leaned back and placed his chin in his paw as he took in the full scale of the attack. This wasn't just a simple attack. This was a war of conquest… there had to be millions upon millions of soldiers and behind-the-line workers driving this sort of war machine. The lieutenant continued without pause.

"The enemy has launched a massive invasion all across Lylat's outer rim. Lylatian outposts are falling across our space's perimeter even as we speak." Yellow dots that blinked with attention catching markers illustrated the position of Lylatian space stations and bases that were under attack. Before the lieutenant even finished speaking, several blinked red and held a steady brightness, signifying that they had been conquered or destroyed. Disturbingly, several wing commanders noted that the enemy had already reached far beyond the _Aragosa's _position.

"The Cornerian Defense Fleet is gathering at Katina to counter the threat, but our outer orbit is in dire straits. Planetary defense systems are standing by at key planets the enemy has not yet attacked. General Peppy Hare has ordered the Orbital Gate system to prepare our fleet for a counterattack, but as our forces were caught off guard, they have not yet mobilized to become a factor in our next mission. Many fleets and battle groups were isolated and unprepared for an attack of this scale and ferocity. Venom is under siege and its defense grid nearing collapse. Papetoon was nearly defenseless, and has been almost completely conquered. Its surface is being subjected to heavy bombardment to destroy remaining Lylatian resistance. All stations near Sector X are under enemy control. We are inside hostile lines, and given the disorganization we have detected from the last transmissions that got through the blockade the enemy is setting up from Sector X to Macbeth, we are not going to get help any time soon."

He threw a cursory glance around at the gathered pilots.

"In short, we here on the orbital Rim are on our own. The enemy has set up interdiction stations that prevent long-range warp, and are jamming any and all transmission we have attempted to make to Command back on Corneria. The captain wanted to make this absolutely clear. We are cut off from reinforcement and cannot make any large-scale operations for the foreseeable future. For those who wish to know, Star Fox was on Fortuna at the time of the attack, and instead of attacking the alien fleet, it is being directed to protect the inner orbital system. They won't come swooping in this time." He paused a moment to let that information sink in. It was a blow to morale knowing that Star Fox was being reined in instead of doing what they did best and launching an immediate counter-attack, but the situation had to be made clear. "Our only hope is to stabilize and reinforce the positions that have not already fallen, and hold on to them until General Hare can formulate an effective strategy. In accordance with this plan, our next destination is the planet Macbeth."

The image changed to a real time scanning overview of the planet, with different codes and shapes indicating a promising amount of ships gathered in orbit around the giant shipyards and construction platforms hovering near the planet.

"We have several orbital platforms around Macbeth that provide maintenance, refitting, and re-arming duties, as well as construction for the majority of our military hardware. If it falls, this entire half of Lylat falls with it. The _Aragosa_ and her frigates have been ordered by Macbeth's planetary governor and the local fleet admiral to assist in its defense. Within two hours we will exit subspace near_ Cyrene,_ one of Macbeth's satellites and the primary defense platform for the entire planet. Our mission will be to bolster its defenses and await new orders. A rally point has been established at this location for any spacecraft that escaped the initial assault.

"Before our satellites went down, we managed to pick up a relay transmission from Corneria. The government has officially declared war on this new enemy, so do not hesitate to kill anything and everything that is not Lylatian and gets in the way of your orders and objectives."

There was a sudden beep from the real-time display. Lieutenant Carlstaff turned and watched as hostile IFF signatures appeared on-screen, and began advancing swiftly towards Cyrene station. His eyes narrowed slightly.

"Prepare for enemy contact."

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In the middle of the _Aragosa's _giant hanger bay, which could hold four wings of fighters and two wings of bombers with a small complement of twelve corvettes (for a below average total of one hundred-two craft, whereas standard carriers could field up to one hundred-fifty), nearly every pilot was preparing for another dogfight. After the brief summary of the next war to strike Lylat, they knew that in all likelihood they'd come out shooting. There was a strange calmness about them all as they prepped their ships for the next launch. The first contact with the alien enemy was all the more humbling as it sank in during the eight hour journey to Macbeth that Lylat was not alone. Of course, other systems had been discovered that supported life, life that could conceivably come to them, and aliens were nothing new. But this was so foreign, to imagine something completely outside of their star system, with only the express purpose to destroy.

The galaxy was suddenly much bigger and scarier, and everyone on the _Aragosa _was suddenly feeling much smaller and less courageous.

Emery Wickliff was trying to keep his mind off things by worrying. Nearly all of Gamma squadron's craft had to be repaired with haste, and the moment his fingers flowed over the control module, Emery knew that his Starblazer wasn't working at peak efficiency. He didn't like this. Their on-the-fly (no pun intended) mission briefing was going to begin in a few minutes to outline Gamma squadron's specific objectives, but he was certain from the enemy's last position it was going to be a scramble mission the moment they dropped out of subspace. They had gone right from the briefing room to the hanger and from there to their beloved ships.

"This just doesn't seem fair," Abram said miserably as he hopped into his own fighter, attaching electrical cords and tubes to his flight suit. The suit itself was a form of control over the fighter, decreasing reaction time to any situation a ship needed to tell its pilot of, and allowing mid-mission information on everything from which wire was out of place, to how long one had to live after a missile had blown out their engines.

"What doesn't?" Emery asked distractedly as his ship ran a diagnostic.

"I mean, this whole thing about an invasion," Abram replied. "I only just got out of the Academy, and now we gotta deal with doing the job Star Fox should be doing!"

"Star Fox is not here for one of two reasons," Jagger muttered as he pulled his helmet on. There was a barely audible "Here we go…" from Gary, which Jagger either ignored or didn't hear.

"They are either not being paid enough to go and fight," he rumbled, "or they are tied down just as we are with just holding on to what we still have."

"I'd go with the second one," Calim said. "Nobody can just ignore a threat this… huge."

"You'd be surprised," Jagger said, and looked over at Abram, who seemed rather nervous through the opaque cockpit, fiddling with his helmet strap and pressing unnecessary buttons.

"Abram," he said simply. The nervous raccoon looked back to him, his face a blank mask of visor and breathing apparatus, but it seemed obvious from his actions that he was using his equipment to hide his nervousness. Everyone had seen the casualty counts from their first engagement. It was not promising for the next.

"Yeah?" Abram asked, almost nervously. He was probably expecting another shoot-down from the badger.

"Remember. Concentrate on our voices only. It keeps you from getting confused in a big fight."

Nothing more was said after that, as the silence that had fallen over the squadron was an understanding one. The best teams didn't have to say anything to each other before a fight. There was only going to be each other, and that they would lay down their lives for one another. What else could there be? Gamma squadron, and the entire ship, was made of soldiers, who were there to fight, for each other, and for their homes. To an outsider the quiet, only broken by orders and reports and the regular chatter of military personnel, might have been oppressive and eerie.

To the duty-bound crew, it was music to their ears.

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Armand patrolled the bridge, watching over the other officers and bridge technicians as they went back and forth on their watches. The lieutenant and captain were not on deck at the moment, and he had temporary command, with clearance to contact the captain should anything odd come up. So far there was just the quiet, reassuring white glow of subspace outside.

The bold and loud husky was an intimidating presence, and he liked to keep unnecessary chatter to a minimum, especially since they were now in the middle of a war that seemed on an even greater scale than anything even Andross' twisted mind could dream up. He didn't think much except for how to obey the next set of orders, and this made him a perfect candidate to be a security officer. This was not to say he was feeble-minded and needed orders to keep running. It was just that he took his job very, very seriously, and the others like Erin and Emery Van knew that making a joke of their positions in his presence was an even worse idea than doing it in front of the captain, who by contrast to his tactical officer was soft-spoken, more of a motivation than a persistent nuisance.

But, Armand wasn't above a little pleasant conversation, which appeared to be what Lieutenant Carlstaff was seeking when he came in.

"Everything quiet?" he asked the husky.

"Aye, sir," he said briskly, nodding stiffly. "We'll reach Macbeth in about an hour. How's the captain holding up?" he asked curiously, keeping his voice to a murmur so the rest of the crew didn't hear and grow distressed worrying about their commander.

"He's in his quarters, thinking," the fox replied just as quietly. "He's under a lot of stress, of course. There's a lot to consider. He received an update from Macbeth that as of now we're the only mobile battle group left in this entire half of Lylat."

"The enemy has engaged _everyone_ else?" Armand said with slight incredulity, raising one eyebrow. Carlstaff nodded grimly.

"They have. 'Everyone else' is tied down with either staying alive or regrouping to keep themselves from being killed off one by one. Apparently the group we fought was unique. They were the only ones who were more focused on targets besides us. It's bad… we can't get a clear picture of what's going on. I showed the pilots what we _knew, _but… with the numbers the enemy has on their side the situation is sure to have changed drastically by now."

Armand sighed. "The crew's faring pretty well, though," he said reassuringly. "They're not working just to distract themselves. They're good men."

"We'll need them," Carlstaff said. "The captain will need all of us." He too sighed, with much more despondency in his voice as he stared out into the messy void of subspace.

"Sometimes I don't know what's worse at times like these… needing to depend on someone, or having someone depend on you."

Armand found that he had no answer, and together they watched the _Aragosa _flow through subspace in silence. The crew continued to work fluidly, in relative calm; a few muttered reports and orders went here and there, but otherwise things went on like any other normal day, with the tension of knowing they were heading into a firestorm kept at a bare minimum. Erin soon spoke up from his post.

"Exit from subspace in thirty minutes."

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Captain Nadal Corvus Ani sat back down in his quarters much like he had the day before, before the attack came and his life was thrown into chaos and danger again. He was reclining in his large easy chair, boots off and paws up on a footstool, crossed over each other. He was trying to relax, and it just wasn't working. Of course, very soon he would have to head back up to the bridge, take command, and be one of the unsung heroes that were front line soldiers, but in the last eight hours he had given all the possible orders he could before major interference with long-range communication created what was essentially a blackout as far as intelligence on enemy and allied positions and statuses went. One of the biggest dangers to any armed force was a lack of situational knowledge, and the only situation that Nadal had knowledge of was the one around Macbeth. General Hare had not ordered him and his frigates there, but rather the planetary governor, a stout little shrew by the name Thaddeus Belconi, and Macbeth's local fleet admiral Lazarus Valentine. Anything higher was simply gone. The central command was no longer Corneria and her stiff-necked, posh generals, but whatever high ranking officers the local fleets could scrape together. Nadal knew that the enemy was moving fast and showing almost no mercy. Venom was likely conquered by now, its governor Dash probably dead, and Papetoon, the former home of Star Fox, was long gone. The current status of both worlds, their defending fleets, and the enemy ones that had besieged them was completely unknown to Nadal. The allied fleets in Sectors Z and Y had either been overrun or simply couldn't contact anyone outside their assigned sectors. Nadal simply had no clue about what was going on outside his immediate area. And yet he had to go back out onto the bridge in less than an hour and pretend that he knew everything they needed, and that he knew exactly what to do with that information.

He closed his eyes and rested his head against the chair. What to do next but head for Macbeth and hope for the best? But he had made it sound like such a good and formidable plan to the others. They were all depending on him to keep his cool, and he knew it. He would not fail. Not like he failed at Fichina. There would be no more massacres of innocents and allies under his watch. He was a captain and would not falter. He _could _not. But what about Corneria and the inner system? What about the people there? No way to know and no reason to think about it. He had to focus on what he had.

It was times like these he was glad he did not have family to worry about. His only family was his crew. And yet, despite them being family, they all had to accept that any one of them could die, likely because of the orders of those above them. It was one reason the captain kept himself mostly detached from the crew. He was supposed to be a leader and a father figure, not an emotionally attached friend. That led to complications and was a danger to discipline, which was one of the most important traits any soldier could have. It allowed him to fly straight at the enemy without fear, guns blazing, and also allowed him to retreat in an orderly fashion and save face in defeat.

Like so many others in Lylat, his thoughts eventually drifted back to Star Fox. Such a tight-knit group, he mused, and see how it was beset by problems before and during the Anglar invasion. It was sheer luck and willpower that had pulled them together again. Mercenaries were, in his view, not soldiers, but merely skilled civilians paid to fight, and had all the problems of ordinary people. Hopefully they would have pulled things together by now and were wreaking havoc on the aliens.

Much as he disliked the idea of a mercenary, he couldn't help but think what he would give to see the _Great Fox _warp in during this next battle. But he had to have faith in his soldiers now. They were Lylat's only chance. From the way Macbeth and General Hare had put it, _he _was Lylat's only chance, if they wanted to get back on their feet and start hitting back effectively. Star Fox could not fight a millions strong army by themselves.

"All right then," he whispered to himself. "All right. I'll do my job. You do yours. And we'll get of this alive."

"Sir," came Lieutenant Carlstaff's voice. "Twenty minutes until we exit subspace."

"I'll be on the bridge immediately," Nadal said, standing up and getting his uniform back in order.

He slipped on his navy cap, and looked at himself in the mirror. He was not a simple otter anymore. He was a soldier all over again, and Lylat needed him. No more thinking. Only action.

He answered her call almost without thinking.

"Give the pilots their briefings," he said on the way out.

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The darkness of the cockpit as the hatch closed and went to maximum opacity was nearly overwhelming. He was shut off from the rest of the world, his own helmet a self-contained survival system, able to withstand even some of the ravages of space itself. It was very quiet inside. The sickly green glow of the HUD powering up gave an extremely lifeless and somewhat monstrous view of the pilot, who sat completely still as he awaited the orders for his particular squadron, snug and secure in his little, compact world that he was master of. Beneath and behind, the Starblazer thrummed and whined as it powered up, the noise dulled by the thickness of the pilot's carapace. Everything was mechanical, automatic, disciplined. The pilot remained still, having gone through all of this dozens of times before.

Then came a voice; male, deep, sure, and simple. Words scrolled across the inner face of the helmet, accompanying the voice. The utter blackness inside the cockpit assisted in making it visible and plain to read. The pilot only blinked at the sudden intrusion of light into his secure space, but remained like a statue otherwise.

"Pilot, attention. I will try to make this brief. The enemy you are about to face is confirmed to be a sentient species completely different from anything inside the Lylat system. What you are about to fight is alien in every sense of the word. You are expected to treat them as any other hostile, and you will maintain your discipline and order in the face of the enemy. At Sargasso, we proved they die as easily as any one of us.

"The _Aragosa _and her frigates will drop out of subspace near _Cyrene, _a defense platform in orbit around Macbeth. We have received a report not too long ago that a massive enemy force has engaged Macbeth's defending fleet. Nearly the entire defense grid, including _Cyrene, _has been engaged and is under heavy attack. Your squadron is being deployed to defend _Cyrene _itself, and the weapon platforms it is in control of. Keep the _Cyrene _and its weapon platforms intact. If the enemy can punch a hole through there, our defense will be severely weakened and possibly compromised entirely, giving the enemy a straight shot at the planet and its construction yards. Reports of long-range ballistic missiles used by the enemy for heavy bombardment have been confirmed. These weapons, pictured in the accompanying database, are extremely dangerous and may be used to attack the planet itself and its orbiting shipyards. They are to be treated as a class B threat and must be dealt with above all others only should they be within your striking range.

"If we keep _Cyrene _and its defense grid intact, it is possible the enemy will never get into position to even use these deadly weapons. Defend _Cyrene _at all costs. Remember, you will be coming out under fire. That is all, pilot."

The HUD flickered and went dark for a moment, before everything flashed to life. The entire cockpit was lit up like a celebration was in order as the ship powered itself for immediate take-off. The _Aragosa _had just dropped out of subspace, and lowered the shields around its hanger. The pilot gunned his engine, and set his throttle to maximum. The Starblazer lived true to its name, roaring out of the hanger into the furious exchange of firepower just outside the ship. A battle was raging all along the perimeter of Macbeth's defenses, with the strange alien ships hammering at the steady line of Lylatians. Fire and death was sprouting all over, illuminating the lone ship in a deathly light that only war could exude.

The pilot hesitated but a moment before shunting power to his G-Diffuser, and boosting straight into the middle of the maelstrom.

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A/N: Whoo! And I stop here until next chapter, which will detail the battle itself. It's going to be long, bloody, and fun. Tune in next time,


	5. Fire In The Sky Part I

A/N: Suggested theme music for the fighter furball scene: "Black Betty," the Spiderbait version.

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The battle around _Cyrene _raged with a fury that could outmatch the grandest storms of Fortuna's rainforests. The alien craft were pressing hard with what appeared to be every available craft they had in this sector, closing in on the large wall of gun platforms and missile batteries. In the middle of it all, _Cyrene _itself stood firm, munitions flying wildly at the massive enemy fleet.

The Lylatian military was fighting on almost all sides, falling all the way back to their powerful weapon platforms, where the smaller corvettes and frigates sought shelter from the mighty cannons and beam weapons that blazed back and forth through the dark from long-range battleships and destroyers. Fleet Admiral Valentine was on _Cyrene, _directing the defense and sending wings of the fleet this way and that to prevent the enemy from boxing them in. Neither they nor the enemy wanted their battle lines to disintegrate and kept their larger, less maneuverable ships back, consigning the smaller vessels to the massive dogfight occurring all along the line, which stretched dozens of kilometers in every direction. Still it was not without risk to maneuver without coordination from all along the rest of the fleet.

Nadal Corvus Ani was reporting to Valentine from his bridge. He and the _Aragosa _had dropped out of subspace near the end of the allied battle line, in the middle of the terrible combat. Nadal had thrown his frigates into the fray without hesitation, but he knew that it was only adding to the stalemate that was rapidly developing; Lylat was quickly becoming aware that time, and numbers, were not on their side.

"Sir, we have engaged the enemy's left flank," he reported, getting only a curt nod from the admiral, a thin ferret that looked more like an artist than an admiral, with his beady eyes and thin fingers.

"Glad to have you on board, captain," he replied simply. "The enemy has apparently decided to try and keep us off balance before bringing down the hammer… considering the force they have yet to throw at us, this may as well be a reconnaissance. But we lack the resources to mount a counter-attack. I want your fighters ready to intercept bombers coming at the platforms. Their main strategy seems to revolve around taking them out before committing to a full engagement. Have your strike craft link up with the ships from the _Redoubt _and_ Saturnine._ Move the _Aragosa _to support the 1st Macbeth."

"Aye, sir," Nadal said, and began relaying orders. His lieutenant stepped up to deliver them as the _Aragosa _went to the rear of the lines, providing a safe haven for damaged fighters and corvettes. The captain glowered at the unfolding fight, which while nigh uncontrollable in scale, was still in its opening stages. Casualties were mounting across the board, and the only strong points of defense were around the heavy cruisers and weapon platforms. It was there, Nadal thought, that the battle would be decided. The Lylatians had to keep their distance to avoid friendly shots and allow the guns a wide field of fire. The enemy was also keeping back its larger vessels and did not want to risk their valuable battleships attacking the platforms head on, content to allow their fighters and corvettes to sow discord and distract the gunners long enough to start punching a hole into the shallow salient with their swarming bombers.

At this distance, it was frustrating to know Lylat's defenders couldn't make a whole lot of difference. But the enemy would soon have to try and punch through… the high watermark was approaching. Nadal could feel it, could sense the tension mounting with every long-range beam and missile traded across the void. Fleet commanders were itching to have a decisive blow come from somewhere, but nobody could risk losing their armadas in a single attack.

It would all come down to whoever lost patience first.

"Focus the beam cannons on enemy corvettes," he told fire control officer Gables. "They're the greatest danger to our fighters. All other weapons, fire at will."

"It'll be hard to avoid hitting our own in this furball," the ermine warned, but transmitted the orders to the gun crews nonetheless.

"The most important targets are our weapon platforms," Nadal replied bluntly, thinking fast. "We can't lose the fighter screen, but keeping the platforms intact is top priority. They're the only thing keeping the bigger ships back right now. Prioritize and take out the ones closest to us. Don't overreach the cannons. One shot, one kill."

"Aye, sir."

"Lieutenant, open our hangers to whoever needs them. Tell the frigates _Gallant, Viridian, _and _Ragtag _to form up on our wing and keep enemy ships off us. Tell maintenance to scrap any fighters that come in too damaged to use again. We have to keep things from getting crowded."

He looked over at navigator Tycho.

"Point the bow towards positive declination forty-one, and alter our axis by twelve degrees to accommodate the greatest volume of fighters."

"Yes, captain. Gyroscopic stabilizers holding steady."

Nadal glanced back up at the battle formations on his view screen. The enemy's left flank was coming in at a slant, and he noticed that several destroyer class vessels with a few cruiser escorts were speeding straight up and away from the main cluster. He narrowed his eyes as he deduced their strategy. They were moving upwards to try and take advantage of the fact that the Lylatians were holding their line steady, and not making very much in the way of tactical movement. Soon they'd be above most of the firefight and could rain down unimpeded destruction on the Lylat formation, but if anyone moved to intercept them, it would start stretching their lines and weaken the volume of firepower they could deploy.

Nonetheless, it was a danger too big to ignore.

He had Emery Van open up a channel to the battleship _Ardent Furor_, hanging back like most of the big ships.

"Captain Fries," he said urgently to the commander of that huge ship. "I'm sending you live footage on a few of those destroyers making a move. Do you see them?"

"I do, Captain Ani," replied Fries over the radio. Opening up a personal view screen would have been too distracting. "We'll move our battle group to intercept."

"Roger that. And watch their cruisers. These guys like to take a lot of personal initiative; they may be escorts, but they could try to slip through while you're tangling with the destroyers."

"Copy that."

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On the bridge of the _Ardent Furor,_ Captain Fries observed the enemy as his and their battle groups rose up above the fight to face each other across the welcomingly empty space. Lylatian Bastion class battleships were originally constructed to become long-range battlefield dominance warships, and filled that role to the brim. Only eight had been made so far. They were formidable vessels and the largest to ever be created in Lylat's history, standing at a fearsome two kilometers in length with a very sleek design. They were so large construction of even key components took place in space, and to date no Bastion, complete or still being manufactured, had ever once touched the surface of a planet. Armed with six Vanguard beam cannons and eight coilgun emplacements, along with literally dozens of turrets, missile batteries, torpedo launchers and point defense pulsar cannons each, along with a full complement of two hundred fighters and bombers with room left over in the aft hangers for several corvettes, a Bastion was more then capable of taking on the wolf pack of four destroyers steaming towards them on a near collision course. But it could not shoot all of them down at once, and the destroyers and accompanying cruisers were well aware of that.

The enemy destroyers were much more aggressive than the rest of the armada, and charged recklessly. They were armed with simple mass driver weapons, but they thundered with fire and grit nonetheless, slamming into the shields of the _Furor._ Their weapons were mostly forward facing, and they had to make the best of them while they could. Captain Fries was not amused by the light show. The shields held under the barrage as the wolf pack bore down on the _Furor, _trying to make as much of a ruckus as possible so their ships could slip through.

"Focus the Vanguards and coilguns on the destroyers. I want our escort frigates on those cruisers." Fries ordered. He watched dispassionately as their monstrously powerful weapons slashed into the armor of the enemy ships. The destroyers were bulky targets, and their defenses withered quickly, but onwards they came at top speed even as their infrastructure was ripped to shreds around them. Their cruiser escorts outstripped them and split apart, trying to disperse the _Furor's _fire and weaken its effectiveness. Three dozen missiles streaked outward from the sides of the _Furor_ in gouts of flame and fury and hurtled towards the cruisers. They also lacked shielding, being very small vessels, and the weapon control teams had timed the attack perfectly to coincide with the frigates' assault, ships of the same Barrier class craft that flew with the _Aragosa_.

Even now the smaller ships were tearing upwards perpendicular to the enemy craft, opening up with their forward cannons and beam weapons. Captain Fries had given orders long before this engagement started. Their opponents had, as Captain Ani said, focused more on their personal ambitions than keeping combat tactics in mind. These invaders were inexperienced, disorganized, or just plain stupid. And they made the perfect cannon fodder.

Lylatian Barrier class frigates were armed with inferior, earlier versions of Vanguard cannons, known affectionately amongst crewmen as BBs, standing for Blue Barkers for the yelping noise the discharge from their particle accelerators made and their distinctive blue glow. Officially, they were called Typhoon cannons, known for their stopping power and energy saving ability as compared to the brute force of the Vanguards. Though only two came with each frigate, they did their job well, slicing into the bellies and flanks of the cruisers as the _Furor's _missiles ripped open their armored plating. The destroyers, knowing their charge was broken and the escorts doomed, slowed up their advance and settled for a more sensible formation, but it was too late. Outnumbered, they retreated back to the safety of their own lines, backing up and firing desperately at any targets that appeared.

Captain Fries and his ships closed in to finish them off, the gargantuan battleship raining down a hideous bombardment on the enemy fleet.

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Amongst the weapon platforms surrounding _Cyrene,_ Emery Wickliff was immersed in a microcosm of the entire conflict. He had no idea that the _Ardent Furor_ was pulling away from the line to counter the enemy's probe, but he was very much aware of the sheer scale of the fight in general. As far as the eye could see the silent contest was being decided with an apparently negligible amount of progress made for either side. The section of wall he was guarding was considered relatively quiet despite the constant shudder he felt from the cannons and the occasional rocket that streaked into view before impacting on unyielding armor plating.

The weapon platforms themselves were quite large, their elongated, mismatched appearance belying the complex machinery and electronics beneath the surface. They were a few times larger than a corvette, with much more mass, all packed with the equipment needed for _Cyrene _to remotely control the entire grid. All Emery could think about was how much more stuff there was to plow into if his flight path deviated.

His squadron hurried parallel to the line of gun platforms, just behind their field of fire as they awaited the next probe of corvettes and fighters. Their section of the line, covered by fighters from the _Aragosa, Redoubt, _and _Saturnine_ and under the control of Emery's Wing Commander Liepner, was responsible for bolstering the anti-fighter capabilities of the platforms and had expected the worst. But, much like the first battle Emery had led his squadron through, the enemy held back the worst of their firepower. Gamma squadron had entered the fray at the tail end of the second wave of enemy ships, but for now all they could do was avoid wreckage, patrol the line, and avoid the long-range weapons fired between the exponentially larger capital ships. It was a bad day to be a fighter pilot, lost as they were in the maze of giants and behemoths toppling each other left and right.

"Update," Liepner said over all the other squadrons' channels.

"_Cyrene_ has launched Pisces interceptors to assist in the battle; they are marked as Epsilon," replied a wing commander from _Saturnine_. "The line is holding steady."

Emery knew that Pisces ships would be of little comfort. Contrary to their namesake, they looked to him more like a bat in flight than any fish, but they slid through space with greater speed and maneuverability than most ships could boast of; even Starblazers paled in comparison to the ability of the Pisces to get somewhere and start breaking up enemy formations fast. They were perfect for taking out bombers at range, but in this kind of fight, where only the ability to take punishment mattered…

"Warning!" said Jagger, making Emery's head snap to his scanners. "They're making a push near us! Detecting several wings of corvettes and bombers. Looks serious this time."

"All fighters, confirm contact and break to engage!" roared Liepner. The formation broke apart into smaller command groups and swung outwards to meet the oncoming craft, which were suddenly joined by the annoyingly familiar shapes of the Crescent fighters (it had become their unofficial name three hours before the battle). The gun platforms were not created to deal with smaller ships exclusively, and their heavy guns ponderously attempted to pulverize the threatening ships, which bobbed and weaved through the hail of plasma bolts and coilgun projectiles even larger than their own craft, suffering minimal casualties at best.

Once they came into range of the Lylatian pilots, it was a different story. The mixed group of Starblazers and heavily armed Basilisk fighters opened fire with everything they had in their arsenals, tearing into the enemy formations which screamed head-on into the maelstrom. The enemy surprisingly kept together, using the Crescent fighters to shield the more vulnerable bombers while the corvettes hurled back heavy ordinance. They were not about to break apart and flee, and the Lylatians did not seem eager to give in to panic either. The massive game of chicken was no bluff. Weapons flashing, they came ever closer to each other.

"Shunt all power to forward shielding!" Liepner shouted moments before impact.

The two groups collided just in front of the gun platforms' effective radius of fire, causing mass confusion as they passed between each others' formations. There was a sudden and quick tangle of ships and criss-crossing laser fire. Several pilots collided with one another and were killed on impact. Emery could only see blurred shapes and the distinctive dull glow of high powered laser fire, the entire scene feeling surreal as it whirled by in hyperactive merriment, barely able to register what was going on around him even with his nervous system augmented by the Starblazer's computers.

As quickly as it began the first confused moments of contact were over, and the Lylatians were set upon from all directions. Cohesiveness in both groups broke down, and the battle became a perfect example of controlled chaos. This was exactly what the enemy planned, Emery realized, his flash of insight coinciding with the flare of his shields as dozens of weapons smashed into it at once. They thrived on hectic maneuvering and one-on-one combat where their penchant for working alone and forming sudden and new attacks could be utilized. Without their teamwork, the Lylatian pilots had only their own skill and discipline to rely on. He had to keep Gamma squadron together so they could achieve local superiority and make their way from there.

The most disturbing thing was that he could not hear Liepner over the communications. That meant he was dead, distracted, or confused, and all three options were inexcusable for a commander at a time like this.

Emery had been going in a relatively straight line so far, and broke out of the main mob and into the small, relatively quiet gap between the strike craft and their charges. His suit had long since detected the stress levels in Emery's body, injecting mind-altering drugs that greatly enhanced his synchronization with the amount of information he was supposed to digest. Two squadrons including his own were still relatively intact and capable of disengaging. The distance to the bombers was wide enough, shields still well over half power…

He swung upwards (relative to the corvettes) to avoid becoming a target, and quickly dialed into his wing's channel, praying that he wouldn't get blasted in the few seconds it would take to relay orders.

"Gamma squadron, this is Gamma leader. Do you read me? Yardarm, Barker squadrons, you guys still there?"

"Roger, Gamma," said the hurried voices of Yardarm and Barker one.

"We're still with you, Emery," he heard Calim add with a note of comforting confidence in his friend.

"Form up; we're taking the fight to the enemy!" Emery said into his helmet. "Follow my flight path and we'll come at them from the side and above. That ought to keep the corvettes from focusing everything on us."

"Gamma one," he heard Liepner say at last. "I see you out there. You're separating yourself from the main battle group and I cannot send you help! Advise you pull out now and get back to the platforms."

"Sir, we're the only ones capable of engaging their bombers! If we don't shake up their formations and neutralize them now, we'll never stop them once they get under _Cyrene's _guns!"

There was a bit of frantic demanding in Emery's voice, Calim noted. Nevertheless he faithfully followed the arctic fox upward, and then banked right in perfect synch with the fox, the rest of the fighters following quickly behind.

"… Copy that, Gamma one. Green light to engage!" Emery heard Liepner reply. It wasn't as though he could stop him right now; Emery was already lining up his first shots. The bombers noticed the large group of attackers and began scattering, opening a hole the corvettes could shoot through.

"Copy that, Commander," Emery said, his voice now level once more. "We'll get 'em."

The Starblazers charged forward, each squadron organized into an extended claw formation to maximize their firepower, using the time-honored barrel roll tactic to smack away the sparse counter-attack from the corvettes' lasers. But as they closed the distance Jagger noted new contacts coming in at a steep angle, already far too close to warn the others properly, but the badger tried nonetheless.

"Counting two new squadrons at-!" He was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a new group of ships, different from the Crescent fighters, which mercilessly tore into the Lylatian formation with concentrated laser fire.

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Abram was one of the first to veer off in a panic as the Starblazers split up into their separate squadrons, and watched as the enemy ships blew through the Lylatian formation in a show of almost contemptuous triumph, one brazenly coming close enough to miss clipping his shields by inches. The moment of shock seemed to bring time to a crawl as Abram rolled right to avoid being thrown off balance. His ship went belly up as the enemy passed beneath him. Abram saw a wide, leaf-shaped ship with an extremely thin profile go hurtling downwards before making an almost insanely sharp turn (although this being space he probably shouldn't have been surprised) to come up at the Lylatians again.

Three ships were lost in the first pass alone, Abram noted as he scrambled to re-form with his allies. Three modern Starblazers! And at no cost to the enemy? As if! Suddenly more angry than afraid, Abram shunted power to his engines and dove to meet the enemy head-on, ignoring Emery's calls to get back on the attack.

---------------------------------------

"I _knew_ that kid was trouble!" Emery vented as he saw Abram break formation. "Yardarm, Barker, stay on the bombers! We'll go after those speed-freaks!"

"Roger, copy, Gamma!"

Ignoring everything except retrieving the wayward pilot, Emery and the rest of the squadron threw down the gauntlet and followed Abram straight into the enemy's next pass, meeting them with a blast of lasers as their superior shielding parried the enemy's return fire. Apparently not expecting such a frenzied counterattack, the leaf-shaped fighters broke apart and zoomed towards the gun platforms.

"They're trying to keep us spread out," Jagger noted. "We should return to Yardarm and Barker and take out the bombers."

"If they lay into our guys in that furball they'll rip 'em to pieces! You saw how fast they were!" Abram objected.

"That's usually why they'd use it as a distraction," Jagger growled in return.

"I'm ordering both of you to shut up or get off the field!" Emery shouted. "This is not the time! Yardarm, Barker, you guys okay?"

"Those corvettes are severely disrupting our formations," Yardarm answered. "The bombers are holding steady. We can't hold back this kind of firepower alone!"

"Roger that." Emery would have run his paw through his headfur if he could, but he had to stay focused and collected. He took a swift breath.

"Those new guys will have to wait. Gamma squadron, form up! The bombers are our priority target! Epsilon, this is Gamma lead. Your Pisces are better suited to take out the new ships. I'm sending all available data."

"We copy, Gamma. Engaging now."

Reluctantly the rest of Gamma squadron fell back into line and jetted towards the bombers which were clustering around the safety of the corvettes. They were long, cylindrical ships, with a bow like a battering ram and enough firepower to be one. Ultra-fast projectile weaponry, possibly some kind of electro-magnetic mass driver not unlike Lylatian coilguns, seemed to be their primary weapon choice, with a single turret sporting the gun. They were dreadful things to underestimate; despite how "primitive" they appeared, they could obliterate fighters in a single blow.

"Begin evasive maneuvers; we're going in hot." Emery ordered as they flew into the minimum effective range of the enemy guns. Barrel rolls would not stop a high density slug traveling many kilometers per second.

But a dozen Starblazers were still a force to be reckoned with, and they easily slid between the deadly crossfire until the corvettes had to resort to nearly ineffective flak cannons. The Lylatians were able to target the bombers with impunity. Emery was astonished that the enemy ships displayed such a varied amalgamation of obsolete technology and fairly effective variants of new weapons. Where did these guys come from?

The fight was decidedly one-sided despite the numerical advantage of the enemy, with the corvettes helpless to fight back against the top-of-the-line Starblazers. Enemy bombers were gunned down mercilessly even as they doubtlessly screamed for assistance. Very soon, all that was left were the corvettes, which were scattering to save their own lives now that their escort mission had failed.

Gamma squadron dove down on one of the corvettes, their shields still holding under the confusing but ineffective flak fire.

"Target the bridge," Emery ordered as they swooped towards the lead enemy corvette. A burst of flak exploded in front of Emery's ship, enveloping him in a flash of metal shards and choking interference for but a moment. When he burst through the cloud, he opened up with his lasers on full power. Approaching the bridge, which was set above the bow, he imagined he could see the deck officers running about in an aimless panic just before Gamma squadron's weaponry tore open the viewport, sending bodies hurtling through space. Emery pulled up before he collided with the vessel, now listless and devoid of command, and watched as support came at last. A wing of Lylatian corvettes and Basilisk fighters had arrived to assist the mop-up.

"Gamma, Yardarm, Barker," Emery heard over his communication set. "You are relieved of your station. We will hold this sector; return to your wing and assist in repelling enemy fighters."

"Roger that," was the clipped reply. The Starblazers veered off of their strafing runs and head back towards the gun grid.

"This is Epsilon wing!" Emery flinched as the desperate voice ricocheted inside his helmet. "Enemy interceptors are ripping our formation to pieces! These guys are elite! We require immediate support!"

Emery rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"No rest… Gamma squadron, this is Gamma one. We're heading for Epsilon wing's position. Yardarm, Barker, we will require your support again. Full burn, everyone. We saw how fast those guys can go."

"Emery," Calim spoke up, "full burn will be dangerous in this grid. We don't have a lot of space as it is."

"It'll have to do," Emery replied. The guns were spaced proportionately along the line; a skilled navigator could squeeze a ship with a frigate's width between them. But at the speeds Gamma squadron would need to catch the enemy fighters, that was disturbingly little space.

The leaf-shaped devils were currently weaving in and out of the grid, chased incessantly by the Pisces interceptor wing; Gary in particular watched the deadly ballet. It was obvious to him that while the enemy ships at first scan seemed to be inferior, there was a group of dedicated and skilled pilots combating the Lylatians and sowing confusion. With a fighter group this far behind the lines it could cause a panic. Like the expert pilot he was, he began scanning the enemy ship movements, watching for the supposed ace.

_There,_ he said to himself as a single enemy ship blew apart two of their own with massed rockets, and wiped out a fire control cluster on the platform they had been guarding. There were distinctive blue stripes on the rounded wings.

"Epsilon, we are here to help," Emery spoke into his communicator, and then opened the channel to all frequencies. "This is Gamma lead. Where's the rest of the Fire Starters?"

"Gamma one, I'd ask the same of you," responded Commander Liepner, his deep, calm voice masking a very anxious undertone. "The _Ardent Furor _and her battle group have just come under heavy assault; they left their section of the line and are above our position. The enemy is making a push to the hole she left, and we're having a hell of a time holding them back. Command is demanding all available support come to the _Furor's _aid. If we lose part of the grid, she'll be the only thing capable of plugging the gap."

Emery was about to respond when Epsilon interrupted.

"Gamma lead! Where's our support?!" the wing leader yelled, clearly on the verge of panic. There were no other nearby squadrons capable of supporting them. Emery looked through one of his viewscreens on the HUD at the ferocious combat that had erupted above and below the _Ardent Furor._ Their own ship _Aragosa _was moving to support the Lylatian fleet as the enemy, taking advantage of the opening, hammered at the suddenly faltering and over-extended defenders with several cruisers and destroyers, and even a couple battleships of their own.

Emery paused, frozen with the same kind of indecision that plagued him in the Aparoid conflict. Other pilots needed his help, but they needed everything they could gather to fend off the enemy fleet…

"Gamma, you have your orders!" Liepner shouted as he noticed his inactivity. "Bombers are inbound, and we _need_ you and your ships!"

"Epsilon here, we won't last much longer! Gamma, Barker, someone, help! They're mauling us!"

"Emery!" Gary shouted all of a sudden, on a private channel. He wouldn't shame his own commander by giving errant suggestions in a situation like this. His eyes were locked on the blue marked fighter. "Take ours and Yardarm squadron to support the rest of the fleet. I'll go with Barker and assist Epsilon. You know I'm best equipped to take on this kind of fight."

Emery shook himself and nodded quickly.

"R… right. Barker lead!"

"Here for you, Gamma one."

"Go with Gamma five and help Epsilon. Yardarm and the rest of Gamma, on my wing. We're heading for the _Furor,_ maximum burn. Good luck, Gamma five."

As they split off, a moment of silence fell over them as the situation became clear. Up ahead of Emery's group the Lylatian fleet was in dire straits as the enemy ships bulled their way into the melee and attempted to isolate the _Furor._

"You really think Gary can handle those guys on his own?" Calim asked Emery privately.

"He's the best chance we've got. He did score higher than either of us on marksmanship and piloting… Creator knows why I got picked as squadron leader, though."

"Not the time, _sir,"_ Jagger remarked gruffly. Emery, braced by the badger's remonstration, breathed in deeply. He didn't enjoy having his own squadron telling him what to do, but he couldn't focus on that now. He only had what was in front of him to deal with.

"Right." He opened his channel to the other ships following him - _depending _on him – and spoke with as much confidence as he could muster.

"All right guys, get ready… our job is to make sure the _Ardent Furor _makes it through this intact. I got a gut feeling we're about to hit the high notes of this battle. Watch each other's backs, and stay together. Now let's kick alien ass."

Wordlessly the two groups split apart, each heading for their designated positions. In the midst of the conflict raging in Macbeth's outer orbit, two different battles, vastly different in scope and importance, were about to be decided.

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A/N: Shoot! Has it been this long? Well, anyway. I hope you all forgive me for the absence, and I hope you enjoyed this battle scene. I promise promise promise, it will not go on for another two chapters! It will be wrapped up, as I know a battle can only go on for so long and remain interesting (as totally freaking awesome as space battles are). So! Until next time! Which will definitely be sooner than this time. And I hate the weak, sickly ending I put in for this chapter, but it is supposed to be merely a transition… when the next chapter is up, do tell me if it'd be better to lump the entire battle into this one chapter (which I don't like doing, but I'd like feedback).

As for the original Star Fox, well… er… don't expect to see them for… uh… I haven't really decided yet. I was kinda hoping this story remains cool enough carried by original characters the whole way except for cameos by the stars. So if the prospect of not seeing your heroes as the focal point of a story intimidates you, this may not be for you.

Sir Raphael, I have entered my story into the Database. But I have no idea how to put it into the search categories.


	6. Fire In The Sky Part II

"Gamma, Yardarm, Barker, all fighters follow me! Attack, attack, attack!"

The small group of Starblazers screamed downwards at their first target, lasers and homing shots ripping into the armored plating, the superheated plasma melting it away and leaving gruesome boils of charred metal. As they blew past and below their target, Emery switched to a rear camera to observe the damage. The frigate they had torn into with such fervor had suffered only minor scarring, but its turrets had been distracted long enough for the wing of bombers behind Emery's squadron to launch their ordinance. Shockwaves bulled through space as the powerful Tachyon bombs detonated against the frigate's hull, gutting the ship from stem to stern and leaving it adrift, alien bodies drifting in macabre peacefulness amongst the smoking wreck. Tachyons were warheads designed specifically to deal with enemy capital ships, and Emery was glad to see that they were performing admirably. His own Spectrum bombs would make little difference in a fight like this, and likely only cause friendly fire.

The enemy was showing signs of improvement. Most of the ships were heading for the_Ardent Furor, _which sat like an island in the shifting tides of combat above the main battle. The enemy had squeezed into the gap she left to target a destroyer wolf pack not too long ago, and was preventing her from getting back into the fray, attempting to isolate her and pick her off. It was like those dart shaped Zonessian sea predators, Emery remembered. They specialized in isolating large prey from their schools and getting a feast afterwards. Emery's job right now was to starve them, make their losses heavy enough to pull back from the_Furor_.

He wondered for a crazy moment if the aliens had read the same book and were lifting a page from it.

"Fire Starters, this is Liepner," boomed the voice of Emery's commander. "A new kind of ship has entered the battle zone. They appear to be a kind of missile frigate, making a run for the_ Furor_. They can tear up anything that gets too close, so that means _we _have to take them out. Basilisk fighters from the Ghost Speakers and the 88th Macbeth are starting their attack runs. We will provide cover."

"This is Gamma lead, inbound with Yardarm squadron. We copy and will assist, commander." Emery spoke with clipped, military confidence. He turned his fighter about, the rest of the squadron following suit. Around, ahead, above, below, there were targets and enemies and friends fighting and dying. This was the controlled chaos of war, where death came swiftly, without warning, and lifelong friends were torn away in an instant of flaring fireballs and sizzling lightning bolts. The larger ships and battle groups remained several kilometers apart to avoid errant collisions, so the battle itself was spread over a very wide area. That did not make the danger any less real, as the more maneuverable frigates, cruisers, corvettes, and fighters danced and weaved through the void between their mother ships, angry hornets amidst feuding bears.

"This is too much…" Abram remarked to himself, almost overwhelmed by the both magnificent and terrifying experience. Everywhere he looked, someone or something was exploding, causing a frightening amount of space junk they had to avoid. If there was one thing a pilot didn't want to die of, it was being crushed by a random piece of floating metal.

Emery ignored him. He had to concentrate on one thing: keeping himself and his own comrades alive. The small, rag-tag group of Starblazers, their polished hulls now scarred and dented from numerous close calls and shields sputtering just to stay online, was closing in on a duo of frigate sized ships with their bows encapsulated in missile batteries and torpedo launchers. Those were the enemy Liepner had warned them of. Emery took a glance at his scanners, realizing that just one of them posed a threat to any battle group. And there, below Emery and to the right, were the Basilisks, their bulky silhouettes coming up quickly, bobbing through the wreckage fields and sheltering behind listless, disabled capital ships to avoid the hawk-eyed scanners of their quarry. Emery's HUD labeled them as Sapphire group.

"Everyone, lock on to Sapphire and form up around them."

"Picking up enemy fighters way too close for comfort!" Emery heard Calim announce, and saw a group of Crescent fighters zip through the debris towards their allies.

"Full burn, take those guys out," Emery ordered calmly. Basilisks would never be able to grapple with fighters that fast.

Heedless to all but their assigned charges, the Starblazers swept gracefully towards their marked targets. They barrel-rolled straight through errant shots from other ships, daringly squeezed between corvettes jockeying for position, and kept formation like the trained soldiers they were. As always, they met the enemy with all guns blazing.

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"Captain, we have something strange on our sensors."

Nadal glanced up from the view screen he had been observing, sending his gaze to a scanning officer across the bridge.

"Sure it isn't echoes from all the debris?"

"No, sir. It's a live target. Picked it up just a moment ago. It's in the middle of an enemy battle group at Z-14, X-11, Y-38, relative our position. Gravitational distortions are in the vicinity. They match the ones from Sargasso."

"Give me a look."

Lieutenant Carlstaff came up next to the otter captain as he went to the main viewscreen. On it appeared one of the enemy's main battle groups in the massive fleet. The camera zoomed in on a single ship, surrounded by larger craft. It was about the size of a frigate, but it had odd, bulbous attachments protruding from around the center. Nadal made a quick check of the _Aragosa's _database.

"Those are the exact same ships we saw during the attack on the _Horizon_… the ones the anomalies were centered around." He turned to Carlstaff as if to find confirmation.

"Indeed sir," the fox replied with a crisp nod. "And the enemy seems intent on keeping them safe; if they're allocating their most powerful battleships to escort them…"

Erin spoke up. "Sir, I've got some strange reports on those little unknowns. They're making a beeline right for this sector of the grid."

Nadal sighed heavily. He didn't know what those things were capable of, but a sudden gravity well right in the middle of _Cyrene's_ perfectly planned defensive perimeter could very well disrupt the entire formation and swing the battle to the enemy.

"Warn the rest of the fleet," he commanded Emery Van. "The aliens are planning something. It's going to be bad. And they're not afraid to risk a substantial portion of their ships…"

He looked back out to the approaching battle groups and their inauspicious charges.

"I have a very bad feeling, Lieutenant," he murmured. "No enemy risks these kinds of losses without a good reason. They're desperate to do_something._ They came into Lylat ready to fight. This was no accident."

Lieutenant Carlstaff sniffed.

"It was no accident, but we will show them it was certainly a mistake."

-----------------------

"Come on and_fight_ me, alien freak!"

Gary Lander launched another fusillade of laser fire into the vacuum, managing to graze the shields of his target, chipping away at their strength bit by agonizing bit. He had the number of the blue-striped fighter, a clear ace even among the skilled pilots that made up the death-squad he and Barker were struggling against. Epsilon had abandoned the fight to regroup, leaving Gary to carry most of the burden of showing the invaders how they made war Lylatian style.

Gary was the best pilot in Gamma squadron, qualified twice over to fly with the elite Ghost Speakers. But he didn't go for that kind of stuffy, elitist spotlighting. Emery and Calim needed him. The squadron needed him. So he had stayed, and helped, and saved face for Emery when he had flagged deciding whether or not to help Epsilon squadron.

Right about now, he was starting to regret that decision.

The enemy ships were speed demons to a tee. Starblazers were one of the most advanced fighters Lylat possessed, but these leaf-shaped alien craft were their equals and then some. In the hands of these disciplined and well-oiled adversaries they became the stuff of legend, something pilots spoke of in hushed tones and kept one eye open for.

Gary was one of the best, but he was no legend. He had the feeling his target, Blue-stripe as he was not so affectionately calling him (_Do these aliens even have genders, _the ferret wondered?), had yet to pull out all the stops. The two of them weaved and shimmied and jived in an area of space that would be considered suicidal in atmosphere and in the restrains of planetary gravity. The gun platforms and their communication and fire support arrays became playgrounds for their exceptional maneuvers.

Gary was behind the ace for now, and he knew he had to cling onto the rear of the enemy fighter with a death-grip, or risk becoming easy prey. The rest of Barker was in dire straits. They had lost three pilots, and only downed one of the enemy elite. Gary would have probably been drowned in the ace's fellow pilots, but Epsilon had returned with two fresh squadrons from _Cyrene,_ which meant many more distractions for the enemy Gary and his quarry were left to themselves. Gary didn't like that. He remembered Jagger saying the aliens operated better when free to exercise personal initiative. Without support, Gary felt surprisingly vulnerable. Debris from the larger ships was also starting to clutter the battlefield, adding to his anxieties.

Blue-stripe suddenly seemed to get an idea, and jetted towards the slowly spinning wreckage of a Lylatian corvette, its body nearly torn in half by a powerful barrage from enemy guns. Around it floated the carcasses of several fighters and the hull plating of an alien ship.

Gary followed the alien into the deathtrap. Blue-stripe blasted straight through the hole in the corvette, narrowly avoiding the exposed infrastructure, Gary hot on his tail. The ace flew straight towards the floating hull plate next to the dead corvette, and suddenly sent his ship into a vertical dive downward over the top of the plate. Gary shook his head as he followed, lining his shots up carefully, noticing that the alien's engines were flaring. Afterburners, perhaps?

His lasers went straight into the tailpipe of the alien fighter, the shields quickly faltering, but already they had reached the bottom of the plate. Blue-stripe momentarily exposed the underside of his ship to Gary as he turned his craft under the bottom of the plate to head back the direction they had come. Gary quickly copied the maneuver. The underside of the corvette came into view… but no fighter!

Gary cursed loudly as he hit his afterburners and rolled his ship so the cockpit was facing "upwards" again. As he cleared the wreckage of the corvette, alarms began screeching like newborn babies.

_He got above me! How?!_

Gary mentally chided himself as Blue-stripe came triumphantly over the _top_ of the dead corvette, all guns opening up as a missile streaked from the underside of the fighter. Gary threw his ship into a barrel roll to block the laser fire, seeking refuge under a gun platform. The missile detonated against the platform just behind Gary, his ship sent into a short tumble as the shields flared from the nearby explosion.

_Those things pack some punch!_

Momentarily safe, he recognized where he had been duped.

Gary had foolishly believed the ace would keep going in a straight line after coming out under the hull plating, but somehow he must have been able to curve up between the hull plate and the corvette. But that was impossible. No fighter should have been able to be going full speed and make a one-eighty on a turn that sharp, at least, not without their ship having to overcome the inertia first, and only larger ships could sport dampeners…

Once again, the alien came at him from up top, angels high, as the ferret came out from under the platform. Gary suddenly realized what kind of danger he was actually in, and went into a wild dive, hoping to lose his would-be assassin in the chaos of the combat around them. He looked back and forth, desperately hoping for support, but allied ships were nowhere nearby, at least none that would bother to help on a whim. Not only had he been outmaneuvered, but he had been lured away from his own comrades!

"Gotta find my inner crazy now…" he muttered to himself as he banked towards an allied frigate, hoping to find some kind of shelter in the crossfire between the fleets.

The alien ace smelled blood and closed in for the kill, smug in the knowledge that he had turned the tables.

---------------------------------------

Nadal was not enjoying the situation. The strange gravity warping ship was drawing ominously close, and despite his repeated warnings to Admiral Valentine, and the awareness of most of the fleet to the impending danger, no allies could get close enough under the withering firepower of the battleships flanking the strange ship. All the while it drew closer, several kilometers off the _Aragosa's _port side.

"I want a damage report," he snapped.

"Sir, the guns are operating at eighty percent of their capacity," Carlstaff reported. "We still have full use of our Vanguard cannons. Aside from damage suffered during the first engagement, we have little to report. _Saturnine _and _Redoubt_ are performing quite well in defending us."

"And my frigates?"

"Ensign and Gibson are holding position several kilometers above to the port side, providing fire support and targeting assistance for the rest of the fleet as you ordered. They have joined the relief effort around the _Ardent Furor._"

"Emery, move the _Aragosa _to the following coordinates… I want to be able to help stop that fleet and their little toy."

"Aye, sir."

The attack carrier began lumbering into position, flanked by two cruisers. They were mainstays of the Cornerian fleet, smaller than frigates and more specialized, but often commanded by brave, impetuous captains.

"When the first targets come into range, open fire," he ordered.

All three ships shuddered with the blast of coilguns and torpedoes, followed quickly by the streaming fire of the Vanguard cannons. But the alien ships still came on, closer and closer. The powerful alien battleships shrugged off the withering offensive fire. Corvettes made suicide runs to distract Lylatian fighters, frigates crowding in living shields around the strange ship in the middle in a desperate gambit to accomplish their goals, whatever they were.

On the bridge of_Cyrene, _Fleet Admiral Valentine observed the strange action with trepidation. They were worryingly close to the platform grid, and they were getting closer still, not even bothering to slow down.

"This is Fleet Admiral Valentine," he announced over a broadcast channel. "There is a cluster of enemy warships guarding an unidentified vessel. Transmitting all available data. I don't know what that thing is, but we need to take it down."

The gun platforms began turning on the quickly dissolving enemy battle group now, but they just kept coming. More and more ships, dozens, piled into the small space, but there was an odd symmetry to it all. They weren't just hurling themselves into the path of Lylatian guns; they were getting into formation for something. Valentine could only wish he knew what it was.

"Admiral!" a deck officer exclaimed. "Numerous other contacts detected. Signals are similar to the strange ship they're guarding… alert! Gravitational distortions have begun forming around all the unknowns. Readings are off the charts!"

"I'm getting strange signals from all over the alien fleet," reported another. "They're communicating for something big."

"The anomalies are… I don't believe it! They're warping into some kind of field!"

"Damn," Valentine said. All of a sudden the situation had begun spinning wildly out of control. "All ships, this is Valentine. Clear out of the area! The enemy has activated some kind of artificial gravity well! Maximum burn, get to safety!"

-------------------------

"Did he just say what I think he said?"

"Those are our orders," Nadal said briskly to Tycho. If the enemy was willing to do something as suicidal as create one of those anomalies here, in the middle of a crowded battlefield, they had to get out and away before they were crushed in the impending disaster. "You heard him. Emergency status, get us out of here!"

"Too late," the husky said in a deadpan voice, his face a mask of dismay. "We're caught. The field is enveloping this entire section of the grid. It's pulling on us, sir!"

"Compensate! Don't we have any countermeasures?"

"Sir, engineering reports massive stress across our infrastructure," Armand said, outwardly calm as ever, but his tightly drawn lips indicated a level of panic he had never known before. All around them the groans of metal protesting the sudden tugs and grinds of inertia began sounding. It was very worrying. Armor and shields couldn't defend against something like this. Nadal found himself at a loss. He couldn't fight back against something they couldn't touch or see. They could only stand and watch the effects of this terrifying new tactic.

The gravity wells began folding incredibly, the entire fabric of space rending and contracting in invisible, yet monstrously powerful ways. The carefully planned grid began falling into chaos, platforms twisting and yawing as the Lylatians pushed engines and ships to the absolute limit in a futile attempt at escape. The _Cyrene _twisted painfully on its axis. On the command deck, Valentine clung to a computer terminal for dear life, listening helplessly as the entire grid devolved into panic.

The enemy fleet was as calm as ever. This was a desperate gambit, but they had been through this before. They had to do this to accomplish their mission. Too much was on the line to let these resilient, furry oddities to stand in their way.

The gravity wells were having a terrifying effect on the rest of the fleet. Whole kilometers of the battle line were being thrown into disarray.

Emery Wickliff soon began to feel the pull himself. His entire ship had suddenly begun shaking and rattling, as if it were trying to tear itself apart. Alarms were blaring in his helmet, biting into his skull. The hysterical transmissions began flooding in.

"What the hell's going on?! Engines aren't responding! Hull's shaking itself apart!"

"This is the_Solar!_ Infrastructure can't take the stress! The gravity's too strong, we can't get out!"

"They've stopped firing. What are they doing? Can't anyone get a good reading on this?"

Emery quickly shut down the unnecessary chatter, searching for his wing's channel.

"Fire Starters, does anyone copy? Get out of here, pilots, we gotta move!"

At the command of his superior, Emery leapt into action, calling together the tattered remnants of the squadrons around him, his voice a comic stutter from all the rapid vibrations.

"All right boys, you heard Liepner! Maximum burn, full throttle, anything! Get away from the centers of those anomalies. This fight's over for now."

Emery wished that was true. As he ignited his engines and pushed them to full power, his ship actually began slowing down… and then turning in directions he didn't want it to go. He had lost all power over his ship. His own Starblazer, a traitor to the cause! But the small fighter couldn't fight against the awesome power of the strange gravity bending ships. He shut his eyes as something sparked, and shut down his engines, putting himself onto a private channel with the rest of Gamma squadron.

"Shut 'em off guys… I don't think we can do anything except go along for the ride."

Emery waited patiently. He was a soldier, no stranger to death. He was either going to get out of this one, or die, and that was that. If anything, he hoped his squadron made it. There's nothing else to do, really, he mused. Just hope.

-------------------------

Gary Lander heard the order just as soon as his shields were ready to give out. The alien ace had marked him for death, for all his fancy maneuvers, and just as he thought he was about to give up the ghost, the strange tugs began. The ace suddenly peeled away and jetted right for his home fleet, leaving the young ferret to gape in disbelief, squinting through the eye that had the patch around it. It was a force of habit he had picked up years ago.

He didn't know what was going on, and he didn't know why everyone was suddenly panicking over all the communication channels. He just knew that he was suddenly fighting for his life not against an alien ship, but his own fighter, which seemed to be trying to pull itself towards some distant point he couldn't identify.

But the front of the ship was pointed at a steep angle away from the source of the pull. The engines were still going full blast. His ship wasn't under some foreign control… it was totally out of it!

He looked around and found himself near the "bottom" of the grid as he would have seen it, away from all the major fighting. His life had been spared, so he might as well try to get a good look at what was going on. He craned his neck and peered towards the main fleet. It was a disheartening, yet awesome sight that unfolded before him.

The enemy battle group clustered around the strange ships accelerated powerfully, following in the wake of the gravity warping ships. Entire, giant battleships were lurching forward, picking up frightening speed, small corvettes were yanked into sudden motion, whole frigates whipped into action, still sideways or upside down, all inexplicably speeding towards distant Macbeth. But they were not alone.

The Lylatian ships were in motion as well. Completely out of control, an entire block of the defense grid disappeared before his very eyes. That was a bit of an exaggeration, as they did not cease to exist, but they were certainly no longer where they were. Gary could hardly believe what he was seeing. Gun platforms were hurried along in the maelstrom, spinning uncontrollably. An entire sea of debris and helpless ships came with it. Fighters were helpless against the inexorable pull, many ripped to pieces just by their own momentum and the iron grip of the gravity wells, the hapless pilots crushed into their own fighters or suddenly and violently depressurized, their suits ready for space, but unable to protect against the torque and myriad other forces that yanked in all directions at once. Two cruisers smashed into each other, fireballs erupting across their decks. Debris was running amok, crashing into enemy and friendly ships alike. The _Aragosa,_ her engines straining mightily, was forced into rushing along with the wave of destruction.

Gary's jaw hung open inside his helmet, his eyes bulging with shock. His heart plummeted into his bowels at the spectacle before him. Even the_Ardent Furor, _powerful as she was, was sent into a self-destructive twist, the incredible G-forces shearing the hull apart, but for the most part she remained in one place… and piece.

The whole mess rushed past him. His mind blown, Gary could only imagine what was going through the minds of his fellow Gamma pilots. He began wondering, of all things, how he was going to contact their next of kin with a war on.

It was about then that the forces that were destroying his fleet began acting on him as well. Before he could even blink, his fighter was hit by what felt like an entire battleship, rushed into the eddies and currents of the anomalies, and began spinning out of control, vibrating like a perverse massage chair. His body was crushed into his seat, and his brain felt like it was trying to force its way out through one of his ears. He shut his eyes as the pain began. He felt a massive pressure all over him, working into his suit, under his skin, into every cell, every niche of his being. It was a merciless grip that began imploding his rib cage, squeezing his very organs and skeleton, an unbearable, agonizing death sentence.

It felt like an eternity, and he began to wonder in some distant corner of his mind where sanity still dwelt if he had died and was facing the torments of Hell. The pressure would not relent. He tried to scream, but he couldn't even force his mouth open. He couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't _breathe!_ How much longer did he have to endure this? All his training, all his skill, it didn't matter at all now. He just wanted to live. He began praying as darkness, the darkness of sleep and death, began enveloping even the shadows of his tightly shut eyelids. He had never been very religious before, but if he got out of this one…

He decided this had no end. The pain, the pressure just went on, and on, getting worse by the second. He could feel, even hear something begin to twist, and then snap. A bone, maybe? Or just the hull of his fighter, the previously impregnable armor cracking and breaking like a flower stem under the paw of a romantic twit getting a gift for his girlfriend? His body began to go numb, his prayers now just feverish pleas for survival, which lost even words and became a silent, whining hum in his head. It couldn't end like this.

_You wouldn't let it end like this..._

There was no more time to think. The pressure suddenly relieved itself. As suddenly as it began, he was free. He likened it to suddenly breaking the surface of an ocean after very nearly drowning. Everything was relieved all at once. The pain was gone. The crushing feeling was gone. He was thrown out of his seat, able to move and think and breathe again.

He took a deep breath, and pain lanced through his body. He didn't care. He was still alive.

Just then his helmet smacked into something unyielding, his skull quickly following suit as it banged against the inside of his protective covering. He felt the force of the blow all the way through the padding. There was an explosion of light behind his eyes, and the young ace fell back into his chair.

It was dark.


	7. Rally

A/N: Fairly long chapter here. If anyone's up to being a beta reader to help me crop future entries, that'd be great.

-------------------------------------------------------

Nadal was a bit panicked to find out he couldn't see properly when his eyes opened. Everything was congealed into an ugly blur, with disjointed bits of color floating back and forth. He shook his head, sat up, and immediately felt paws under his armpits, hefting him up off the uncomfortable floor of the _Aragosa's _bridge. He had the vague recollection that a catastrophe had just happened. Immediately his thoughts flew to his ship. He pushed the helping paws away from him and leaned forward, his paws on his knees as he collected himself.

"Damage report," he said without hesitation, his voice slurred and mumbled, not nearly the authoritative boom he had wanted.

"Sir, we're still getting readings… most of the ship is dark."

"Does busting up my face count as damage?" asked a gruff voice. Nadal pegged it as belonging to Armand.

"Anyone else hurt?" he asked through a high-pitched wheeze. He had fallen on something but _hard._ His vision was starting to clear, that was something.

The collective answer was a tepid but synchronous "No, sir!" Well, that was good, Nadal thought. The bridge crew was functioning, so the ship could still move with a vague sense of purpose. Assuming the engines were still online, which Nadal doubted very much. Lieutenant Carlstaff came up next to him, holding his shoulder and trying to hide a grimace. Nadal's eyes narrowed with concern.

"All right, Lieutenant?" he asked. The handsome fox nodded. The straightforward motion looked very strange through the haze over Nadal's eyes. He blinked several times to clear it.

"Just a bit of a bump, sir," was Carlstaff's answer.

"Good… contact engineering. Everyone else, get back to your stations! We need an update from the fleet! Viewscreens?"

He looked up at the area where he would normally get some visual cues, but all he saw was blank screens. The rest of the bridge wasn't looking too good either. Most of the screens were dark; somehow even the spartan sheet metal over the walls and floor appeared to lack its former luster. Armand stumbled up next to him, clutched a paw to his bleeding snout. His dark, duty-ridden eyes peered over the injury, and Nadal knew the buff husky was just fine. Everyone else looked able to walk at least as they stumbled up from their various positions sprawled over the bridge.

"Viewscreens," he repeated, speaking calm and plain now, back to being the solid presence he had to be.

"I'm on it," called out Emery Van. His copper colored paws reached up from the floor to drag him upright, then flew over the terminal in front of him. Acute, discerning eyes swept over the readings.

"I've only got a few exterior cameras… I'll give you what I can. Upper bow camera four coming up."

The crew straightened up and peered at the main screen, then took a collective leap backwards at the terrifying sight: an enemy destroyer lurched forward out of the void, on a seeming collision course.

"Fire control!" Nadal snapped.

"Still recycling, sir!" Gables reported.

"Everyone brace for-!"

Before Nadal could finish, the ramshackle, angular hull passed them completely by, sliding peacefully over the camera and out of sight. Nadal looked down to his feet, expecting to feel the familiar rumble of enemy fire striking the hull.

"No hits?" he asked nobody in particular, and nobody answered. "Where are they going?" he tried again.

"Sensors online, captain," Erin spoke up. Through all the excitement the sedentary, dutiful hedgehog had been at his chair, trying to get a proper diagnostic together of the systems he was in charge of. His job required a lot of concentration, and he was proud to maintain it. But as the information flowed in, his countenance became contorted with surprise. "It looks like… sir, I don't believe it! We're in high orbit over Macbeth… a lot of allied ships, but nobody's in formation. I think they're in the same boat as us. The alien fleet is completely ignoring ours. Several vessels just blew through a debris field and they're heading right for the planet. I think… I'm picking up allied signals. We've got firefights sprouting in the lower atmosphere. The aliens have already engaged planetary defenses."

"Invasion?" Armand asserted. Nobody disagreed.

"Captain," Carlstaff piped up from a terminal behind Armand. "Chief Engineer Rutgers reports heavy damage to the engines. Had a few leaks in the reactor, but everything's been contained." There was a distinct, biting pause. "He reports many casualties, sir… at least fifteen dead so far and over two dozen wounded."

Nadal spared a moment to bow his head. "Right," he said as he raised it again. "I'm going down there myself. If the enemy has designs on Macbeth's surface more important than killing us, it can't bode well for Lylat." He turned around and began walking out, slapping Carlstaff's shoulder.

"Lieutenant, you have the deck. Get me a comprehensive report on what the hell just happened. Armand, get your teams together. Secure the rest of the ship, organize the medical bay to retrieve the dead and get to work on our wounded. Give Doctor Lubomil all the help he needs. Oh…" He stopped next to the husky and gave him a wry glance. "Fix your nose while you're at it. Doesn't look good in the recruitment posters." The battle stress must have made him giddy.

The heavily fortified bridge entrance slid fluidly open as he approached it. Nadal turned halfway to speak to his crew, his rumpled uniform and staggered posture giving him a very rugged, inspiring demeanor.

"We are still in a war, and the _Aragosa_ is not out of the fight yet. Get your heads together and get us back in the line!" He turned away and called over his shoulder, "And _someone _figure out where my pilots got to!"

------------------------

_Where am I? Am I dead? Someone tell me…_

It was impossible to know how much time had passed. Gary flinched in the darkness of his Starblazer, which was still flickering with signs of life. His eyelids fluttered like the wings of a panicking butterfly, struggling to stretch open. The only light was blurry, a blank white that made him think of the kind of light that led to the afterlife. At first he closed his eyes again, but then the faint crackling in his ears reassured him that he was nowhere near dead. That was the distinct noise of radio static inside his helmet's communication complex.

His helmet… oh, it stank, but with what? There was an acrid, copper taste teasing the edges of his tongue. Where was the light coming from? He let his eyes try and focus. The cockpit was very dark, nearly pitch black, and everything was at an angle. He must have slipped out of his seat; this was further evidenced by the fact that his limbs were floating about lazily in front of him. A few of the safety straps had broken. Half his body was floating freely. He decided to test out moving something other than his eyes, and he came fully awake.

The first thing Gary noticed was the pain. Pain was everywhere. It was almost impossible to breathe without a lightning bolt arcing through his chest. He must have broken a rib or two. An alarm was buzzing; it sounded like it was inside his helmet… or was it just his reaction to banging his head the way he did? Beyond that was a low, constant ringing. He could barely remember what had led up to this moment. There had been a rushing torrent, invisible and terrifying, and everything was shaking, twisting, and breaking. After that, the sudden stop, then nothing. If he had woken up before now, he didn't remember it. Blotches of darkness gathered on the edges of his vision, and he shook his head to fight them off. His nerve endings exploded with protest at the sudden movement. Stars bounced gaily behind his eyes.

His suit crackled as if to prod him to action, struggling to update him on the situation.

"Warnikkzzcchht… wa-wa-… contac-… administer heal-zzt… agents. Sevvvv-eeding, gashes-internal bleeding detec-tec-tec…"

He hoped the suit had had the presence of mind to administer the painkillers and artificial coagulants before now… they must have, or he'd have bled out, and been in much greater agony. Or perhaps he had just gotten lucky. The suit had doubtlessly saved him from the majority of the beating he had taken, but his left arm felt swollen and was likely bruised terribly. Regardless, he had to get out of here, before he succumbed to shock or fatigue from blood loss.

He lifted his head, noticing the HUD on the inside of his helmet was spattered with blood. He suddenly felt hysterically claustrophobic; the stench he recognized as his own life fluid. He lifted his good arm, moving sluggishly to avoid carving himself up with his own broken body, and unfastened his helmet, then hurled it into a corner, where it bounced off wildly and spun about. He tried to curl himself into a ball to escape some of the pain, but that hurt even worse, making him break into a freezing cold sweat, a wave of nausea washing over him. He lifted his eyes to look outside, but it was completely dark, and for an irrational moment he feared blindness before recognizing what happened. The cockpit's opacity was at maximum, which he corrected with a slurred verbal command. Slowly, the outside world faded back into view. Gary immediately wished he had just kept the windows shut, as it were.

Outside was a heartbreaking sight. Macbeth was visible, filling most of his vision (he must have been somewhere just above the exosphere), and around it, or at least around Gary, was the shattered remnant of a once mighty fleet. Ships floated dead in space, their empty compartments gaping as if to speak their shock at the aftermath. Shards of metal spun gracefully in place, catching the light of the distant sun and creating pinpoints of morose cheer in the deathly silent graveyard. Exposed engine cores and charged weaponry drifted dangerously close together, threatening to end any life nearby just out of spite for the horror they had been through. Above Gary's Starblazer, the broken carcass of a Lylatian frigate floated serenely by, on its way into the atmosphere, trapped by the planet's gravity and traveling too steeply to remain in freefall. Soon, it would burn up and disintegrate before meeting its final farewell on the planet's surface. It had seen enough of war.

Gary suddenly felt desolate and abandoned. A fight had obviously taken place here, but where had it gone? He reached out with his uninjured right arm and began testing out the various systems of his Starblazer, trying to adjust the communications first and foremost.

Broken, barely audible radio transmissions were now recognizable, as the dull ringing in his ears was slowly subsiding. There were distress signals coming from all over the construction ring and several spots on the planet as his barely functioning HUD told him. Red dots appeared on the surface of Macbeth, which showed all the locations that were calling for help, and there were many. He could hear faint, desperate voices, fading in and out as they fought through the interference of enemy jamming signals and the space junk surrounding the area. Even regular battle chatter on broader channels was bouncing around. The garbled voices overlapped and collapsed on each other, creating a symphony of adrenaline and despair.

"This is… -nyone there? We are tr-… invasions! Ground troops have… cannot…!"

"Anyone? Anyone at all! This is the 135th calling for air-… overwhelmed! Bombardments immine-…"

"Shift to third sector and support…"

"…have held our… -eed reinforcement imme-…"

Gary's heart leaped as he glanced back at Macbeth. Had he heard right about an invasion? The dusty, arid planet was half-shrouded in its night cycle, the gloom and shadow creating a perfect backdrop to see the struggle below. He could see the faint glow of massive explosions near the surface, and within the atmosphere… the ominous flashes did not make him feel any better about his predicament. He needed more than just little blips on a planet's surface, though, and quickly began running a scan of the area where the fighting was most concentrated. His HUD formed a pale grid over the area, fizzling, and then returning at full strength, which earned a satisfied smile from Gary. The scan identified Sirrus, a large city on the southern hemisphere and a prime manufacturing and industrial center, as the spot where the fighting was clustered. Most of the city was on fire. Enemy ships hovered above the town, occasionally firing down upon Lylatian strongholds. The fight wasn't going to last long if the aliens had gained air superiority…

Gary suddenly felt himself eager to get back into the fight. Enemy air superiority was an unknown concept to the ace! He squinted down at the field of battle through the patch of brown over his left eye, bringing up a paw to rest against his cheek. It came away damp with drying blood. The ferret groaned aloud and rested his head back against his seat, shivering uncontrollably.

He thought about how his situation could be worse, but the pain and sight of his own blood was more than enough. He found it ironic that someone so used to killing would be rattled by personal injury. He glanced back outside, eyes shining with unshed tears of throbbing cramps and biting needles. A small portion of the countryside suddenly blossomed into flame under his HUD's camera's scrutiny. One of the starports in the city must have been hit, or an enemy ship had been taken down. It looked bad, and there was no support immediately incoming to the poor souls who were still fighting on the ground in Lylat's defense.

He reached out to his control module and keyed in a few commands, attempting to eliminate the distress signals one by one until he hit on the one coded with the greatest urgency, so he would know where he was most needed after his wounds were inspected. There were so many calls coming in it would take hours to filter through them all… he might as well just try and find his way to the nearest friendly ship with an airlock.

But then he paused as he heard something odd. It was a Lylatian signal, but there was something else inside of the call, which didn't make sense anyway. It was just a repeating signal on a maintenance frequency. The scanner sent up a quiet alarm as it detected a foreign transmission piggybacking on the original, riding up into the atmosphere and disappearing into an unknown point in space. He ran a trace, but it was impossible to follow it all the way back down to the planet without more sophisticated equipment, making him sigh with disappointment. The signal was very faint, but somehow the bouncing effect created by the massive graveyard of metal had aligned it to his ship's receivers. If only it was going somewhere. He recorded the signal's pulse all the way through to the end, where it repeated itself in a loop. Command would need to take a look at something like this. While Gary's Starblazer could receive the foreign signal, it had no chance of deciphering it.

Gary had more pressing matters to attend to; his fellow soldiers needed him out there. He couldn't just sit here and gawk at strange signals. That and the pain were becoming unbearable.

With agonizing, deliberate movements, he began running a full diagnostic. The Starblazer's engines were shot, working at only about thirty percent of their full efficiency. That would be just enough to nudge himself out of the junkyard and get a clear signal out to any rescue ships. Everything else, from scanners to life support, was barely functioning. The entire ship looked warped. It was a wonder it hadn't been ripped in half as it decelerated with the rest of the alien fleet. It was a wonder _he _was still in one piece!

_I guess that prayer stuff has more going for it than people say,_ he thought with a smirk as he began guiding his ship out of the debris field.

Even with just one arm capable of flying, he was able to steer with the help of spot-on retro-rocket firing. The experience was surreal. As far as he could see, he was the only sign of life in a dead zone, flying over a planet in turmoil. Not that a single battle would have much of an impact on the planet as a whole, but he couldn't shake the melancholy, dreamlike feeling he had. There was total silence in the midst of the former battleground, with another raging not too far below; a moment of peace for those who had been lost juxtaposed with the fury of battle. Gary almost felt as if he should be bowing his head for the solemnity of the moment.

The reverie was suddenly cut short when he had a transmission break through the interference.

"This is the salvage ship _Odyssey._ Any Lylatians still out here please respond. We are friendly and we are here to help. I say again, this is the salvage ship _Odyssey…"_

Gary smiled as he flicked on his distress beacon, and waited for his allies to pick him up. He wasn't hurt too badly. He could be battle ready (in his opinion) within two hours, and then rejoin his comrades below. Gary Landers was still in the fight.

-----------------

"What do you _mean_ I can't go back out?"

It was two hours later, and Gary Landers was decidedly _not_ back in the fight. He was in the _Aragosa's _well lit medical bay, bandaged and mostly repaired. He was yelling at Doctor Lubomil, a weathered and world-weary tabby cat and stoic head of the ship's small infirmary. His stripes were uneven and faded, as was his entire body. He had been born with a crooked spine, which had mostly been fixed except for a slight hunch and a tendency to lean forward and to the right, giving him a perpetually no-nonsense and decisive look. Enjoying the effect it had on stubborn patients Lubomil had decided not to waste a few thousands credits to repair it all the way.

Gary Landers, however, had charged dozens of enemy battle groups with only the slimmest odds on his side. He was not going to be intimidated by a flint-eyed feline.

"I mean what I say," Dr. Lubomil replied to the consternated ferret. "Now stop shouting unless you want to make your headache worse."

"Forget that!" Gary blasted back, nonetheless putting a paw to his bandaged forehead as his aches and pains refused to quit. His frustration helped him battle through the freezing, sweat-inducing agony. "My squadron is out there somewhere, and I have to go fight!" he panted, desperate to convince even himself that he had to keep moving.

"Not until a proper debriefing," the tabby answered in a near monotone. The cool, indifferent quality to the doctor's voice only agitated Gary further, but he hurt too much to do anything but listen as Lubomil went on. "The captain himself is on the way, and he wants things done right. You must have seen the ship when you were brought in… half the systems are down, engines on the verge of collapse, dozens of crewmen incapacitated… you should be glad I'm even able to look after you with the way things are."

Gary sighed and lay back on the bed he had been given, wincing firmly as he felt the brace on his chest and the bandages on his head. The bruised arm was now swollen and ugly. The only reason he could move was because of the stimulants given when he was brought aboard. He had received everything he needed to function properly without much attention towards how well he healed. There was still a war on; until the fleet could drive out the enemy every soldier, wounded or not, could be called back into action. And from what Gary had seen, there were a lot more soldiers worse off than he.

"It must be about the transmission I-"

"Ah! Ah!" the Doctor interrupted, holding up a bony paw. "Don't say a word to me, the captain wouldn't appreciate it."

"I shouldn't think words would be much of a problem after facing beam cannons and mass drivers for most of my life," Captain Ani remarked from a nearby doorway. He stepped inside, and Gary noticed the listlessness in his step. The past few hours must have been very hard on the captain, so he decided to give the proper respects with gusto. Gary leaped up and tried to salute, but he was arrested by a sudden jab of piercing, red-hot pain in his chest.

"Officer on de-agh!"

"At ease before you kill yourself, soldier." Nadal smiled thinly as Gary re-seated himself. The ferret's honest action had restored some of his former briskness, but there was still an all too-familiar slump in his shoulders, a sign of constant war's weariness.

"Keep calm," the otter continued. "You're not going anywhere any time soon. Identify yourself."

"Gary Landers, sir," the aggrieved ferret replied, clutching his torso pitifully. "I'm in Gamma Squadron, with the 56th. Friends like to call me Patch."

"You're lucky we got you back here alive, from what they tell me."

"With all due respect sir, I shouldn't be here. I need to be with my squadron!"

Lubomil rolled his eyes at the ferret.

"You have two broken ribs, which I'm surprised have not cut into your heart and lungs the way you keep trying to dash around. The stimulants will wear off soon, and _then_ you'll barely be able to walk, let alone fly. Any fighting, let alone atmospheric travel is out of the question for you. Young pilots always think they can take pain… well, _you'll_ know it soon enough!"

"But I-"

"He's right, Landers," Nadal said softly, raising a calming paw. "And in any case, I am here because of what you reported when we brought you in… that transmission."

Gary sat up at once.

"Sir. It was an alien signal, piggybacking on one of our own, trying to stay hidden and using the debris field as cover. I happened to be in the right place at the right time. I'm pretty sure Intel already picked my ship clean …?"

"Just covering all the bases, pilot. Do you know where it was going?"

"No, sir. I didn't get a chance to really study it… seeing the condition I was in and all." Gary sent his gaze to the floor, squinting through his patch.

"Only thing I know is, it was small, but it wasn't _going_ anywhere. Made me suspicious. Might have just been a mistake on their part, but uh…"

"You did well, Landers," Nadal cut in. "It's obvious you don't know more than we do. If you'll excuse me, now that my curiosity is satisfied, I need to get back to commanding my ship… still a war to win." He headed for the door.

Gary sat up, eyes going wide. In all the activity around giving his information to intelligence and getting his body back together, he had never gotten a really good idea of what was going on.

"Sir?" he started nervously. Nadal stopped and turned back.

"Permission to ask you something?"

The otter nodded.

"I know we're still fighting and all, but what's it like out there?"

Nadal offered him a knowing smile.

"The doctor can fill you in on that. Suffice for me to say, it requires immediate attention."

-------------------------

Emery wasn't certain whether he should feel relieved or not. On the one hand, his entire squadron was still intact and alive. He had just gotten word of Gary's retrieval, which had lifted a heavy burden that had been on his mind for the past three hours. On the other paw, their ace had been confined to the infirmary with debilitating injuries, and now they were in the hanger of Artio Station, a refitting port and drydock in the menagerie of construction platforms surrounding Macbeth and its major star ports. It was clogged with broken ships and even more broken pilots that had still not received medical attention. A station like this had not been built to accommodate such an influx of wounded and panicked soldiers, and the hanger was the only place to keep them, next to their beloved ships. Many had collided with some kind of debris or even other, live ships, others just coming back for repairs from combat damage, some limped in with ridiculous torsions and gashes from the weird effects of the gravity warp. On the more spacious drydocks outside, the hulks of halfway complete starships were floating dead in space, shoved away to make room for maligned corvettes and smoking cruisers. Emery shook his head in disbelief at how easily things had gone from relatively controlled to utterly insane.

Somehow he and Gamma squadron had survived the debacle after the gravity warp of the alien fleet, but as they looked around they saw that their comrades were not so lucky. Most of the fleet was still in chaos, Emery knew from reports that half of the fleet was combat ineffective, and the enemy had poured through the breaches and begun a fearsome takeover of Sirrus city on Macbeth's surface. They had inexplicably landed nowhere else, their objective apparently the mining bases in the mountains near the metropolis.

Currently Emery was listening to the latest debriefing on enemy activity on the floor of the hanger, his paws on his hips as he stood in bated anxiety with the other surviving pilots they had scraped together. His once snow-white fur was drab and grimy from perspiration, greasy from helping a hard-pressed mechanic perform a quick-fix on his Starblazer, charred on one side from his ear to his chin from a bursting control panel that had nearly burned half his face off. There was no time to tend to it, and it was mostly fur-deep, leaving him with a very haggard, sooty appearance. He wasn't feeling much like a brave, useful squadron leader at the moment. In fact, all the terror and fatigue of the last fifteen hours was starting to catch up to him. He hadn't gotten a moment of rest since the war started.

From what he could hear over the din of engineers and medics rushing back and forth to tend to distraught fighters and their shaken pilots, the situation was steadily degrading in the battle for Sirrus. Speaking to the small assembly of soldiers still able to fly and fight was a wing commander Emery was unfamiliar with, just a big, burly bulldog with a severely burned jowl. Many pilots had gotten mixed up in the confusion and simply gathered where there was room. Most were not from the same ships, or fleets, temporary rearrangements and personnel shifts were made on the fly.

At least his deep baritone was carrying well.

"All right. I think this time we're finally going out pilots, so listen close. Sirrus, to put it lightly, now mostly belongs to the enemy. You all know what happened out there when they created the warp. We don't know much, but I've heard some rumors it was a kind of gravitational 'tug' they were using, bending the space around them and using it for quick, dirty propulsion. That's what messed us up so bad. They knew how to ride the wave, and we just got caught in it. In any case, they leap-frogged our fleet and went straight for the surface. Now then, a battleship, four destroyers, numerous corvettes, cruisers, and heavy transport vessels, along with several wings of fighters and bombers managed to make it before Macbeth's defense grid was able to get their act together. The rest of the enemy fleet is reorganizing a way off, probably gearing up to finish us, but for now they're not doing much besides probing attacks to keep us on our toes. The bad guys down below have pretty much made things FUBAR. Sirrus was bombarded for an hour from close range. We have confirmed reports that the ballistic missiles we heard about in our briefings have been used by the enemy, and were instrumental in wiping out most of the initial defending force. A full-on invasion then took place. We estimate six to eight thousand enemy troopers on the ground, right now, picking off the army guys too shell-shocked to fight back. God only knows why nobody was mobilized properly down there.

"The enemy's moving fast and furious, and we have to catch up. I just got word one of the enemy destroyers has been taken down and came to a stop near the mountain range outside of town. Unfortunately that just gave them a head-start. Their objective appears to be the mining base _in_ the mountains outside of Sirrus, and, well, they're about to win that too."

"So what's our job?" called out a grim-faced lynx to Emery's right. He couldn't have been more than two years the fox's senior, and already he looked like a sub-commander for all he'd been through. _War really messes with the head,_ Emery reflected briefly.

"Our mission," the bulldog went on, "is to punch through the enemy fleet and begin providing close fire support for the guys on the ground so they can hold on to what little they have left, and begin a counter-attack back into the city. We're all fighter guys here, so we'll be mixing it up with E.T.'s miserable excuse for an air force. The enemy capital ships are hovering in low orbit. Their cruisers and corvettes are holding position above the town and the mountains."

"Wait, wait…" asked another pilot. "It'll be… just _us?_ Against the_ entire _flotilla?"

The bulldog shook his head, his jowls wobbled tremulously.

"Governor Belconi is screaming that we grow ourselves a pair and get back into the fight, so we'll be going in with a battle group scraped together by Admiral Valentine."

Emery's eyes widened. So the admiral had finally gotten off _Cyrene_. Right now the station was in dire straits, almost completely off-line and in danger of careening off its wobbly orbit and into Macbeth itself. Fortunately they had had the good sense to evacuate after the warp.

"Most of the fleet is still needed to safeguard against another attack. The enemy force outnumbers us two to one, and we can't split our resources. We don't have much time, so we're going in with a bunch of smaller ships that can easily enter and exit the atmosphere with minimal fuss about gravity and all that. _Procyon, _one of our still functioning destroyers, will lead a small detachment to try and draw off the enemy capital ships back into space where our heavier weapons can fire on them without danger of collateral damage. The frigate_ Vanguard _from the _Aragosa's _battle group will lead the charge into the atmosphere, followed by several wings of corvettes that were stationed near Macbeth, and have not taken part in the battle… until now. We'll have a small window once the enemy engages _Procyon _and her escorts when we'll be able to slip in unopposed and help turn the tide in Sirrus. We will provide cover for the ground forces until they can regroup for a counterattack. Get your gear together, find your new squadrons, and wait for the signal to head out. We're hurting, people! We lose here and these bastards will have their way with the entire system! Now let's get this _done!"_

There was a gruff, angry chorus of assent; the pilots began splitting off into their respective groups. Emery felt someone nudge his shoulder. Calim had appeared next to him.

"Got a minute, sir?"

"Yeah, yeah, speak freely, Calim." Emery waved his paw impatiently.

"You look worried."

"Of course I do! We're about to fly right into an enemy flotilla, and we have to hold off an entire invasion force by ourselves until the ground pounders can take back the city. What do _you _make of all this?"

"Me? I think this whole campaign is bogus."

"You feel it too, huh?"

"Yeah. I mean, this doesn't make any sense. The enemy's not trying to take over, hanging back like that. So why come here? Why Macbeth? It's an important planet, but they're not trying to get what _we _think is important. There's writing on the wall, but some sneaky turncoat put it up in invisible ink."

"Yeah… but what are we supposed to do?" Emery lamented, paws on his hips. "I doubt we're gonna find anything important down there while we're trying to watch each other's backs _and _provide cover for the army guys."

"I'll tell you one thing," Jagger broke in suddenly, strapping on the last of his flight suit. "Lylat needs to figure out how to fight for once… do we have fleets rushing to retake the conquered planets? No. We're hunkering down; waiting for _Star Fox _to start carrying all the weight again. The high command hasn't sent _anything _to us, orders or otherwise."

"You know why that is," Calim rebutted, but it was lackluster in delivery. "The enemy's seized control of pretty much the entire communication buoy network. And with those gravity warps, it'll be pretty much impossible to get a subspace courier going. It could fling you to the next star system over."

"And the Orbital Gate_is _still kind of experimental," Emery added with a shrug, looking detached from the conversation. He was staring out towards the hanger's open door, where the outside world shimmered from the atmospheric containment field. "Not like we can just throw a fleet through one and _not _expect a reprisal… gotta be strategic."

"Which brings up another point," Jagger interjected in his typical growl. "Speaking of strategy, why is a race capable of interstellar travel without the use of subspace nodes bothering with Lylat? Does General Pepper know anything more than us? No." He jabbed a thick claw downwards for emphasis. "Believe me, we can fight. We can beat them back. We can even destroy the entire invasion force. But if we never know what they came here for, we may lose anyway. There's more to winning a war than just killing the enemy, it's figuring them out, too."

Emery looked ready to say something, his tail starting to swish with agitation, but then Abram jogged up to them.

"We really going in without Gary?" he asked, shoulders slumped and ears folded back, hazel eyes jumping between the other three.

"Patch is gonna be fine, and we can handle this without him," Emery said. The sentence drifted off wistfully into the air. Not wanting his squadron to head into another battle weary and doubtful, Emery stood straighter, forcing his tail to come to a halt and squaring his shoulders, a striking figure with his ruffled appearance.

"Gamma squadron, listen up," he said in a clear voice, "we're Fire Starters. We take the fight to the enemy. People are dying down there. _Our_ people. I need your heads in the game, your fingers on your triggers, and your worries squared away. We either sit up here to bicker about why these aliens are here, or we go down there and blow them to Hell before they slaughter more of ours. They've already killed women and children, and they're gunning down anything else that gets in their way. This is where we're going to turn their fortunes around. This is where _they _start hurting. This is where we start _winning._ Is that clear?" he barked.

"Yes, sir!" was the resounding answer. Emery nodded crisply.

"Let's bring the rain."


	8. Retaliation

The mood was solemn as Emery and the rest of the fighter squadrons roared out of the hanger bay, angling their ships towards the planet's surface. Nobody had said anything when they were getting ready. There had only been that understanding, comfortable quiet before the mission.

Dozens of fighters soon formed up around Emery, including the remaining members of Gamma squadron. The white fox looked about him as his ship cleared the atmosphere containment field. The main fleet looked beaten, tense, and disorganized. Most of the debris being drawn in by the planet's gravity had been cleared, but all the same it felt clustered and anxious around the orbiting ships. They had to stay behind and stare down the gun barrels of the enemy armada, lurking just beyond effective weapon range around the planet. Neither side seemed to want to start the fight anew, but they couldn't take any chances. Everyone was on a hair trigger.

_Ironic,_ Emery thought, _that it's so quiet up here, yet there's a full-blown war down there._

It was then the fighters found themselves swallowed up by the silhouette of the destroyer _Procyon._ Admiral Valentine began speaking on the fleet-wide frequency.

"All right people, listen up. We can't safely get down to the surface if we're in an engagement! _Procyon, _you and the _Vanguard _will draw off the enemy capital ships and bring them back into range of our heavy guns. Fighters and corvettes, you'll be heading in to help the troops on the ground, and provide an escort for our troop carriers that will follow your entry. You're the only ones who can make atmospheric entry with reasonable speed and negligent regard for gravity. _Vanguard _will remain in lower orbit after _Procyon_has engaged the enemy flotilla to provide fire support and will be reinforced once we know the enemy won't be making a push. Know this: if the enemy fleet comes at us again, we will need every single ship. You will not be getting further support unless the need is absolutely dire. That is all."

The _Procyon _jumped forward with alacrity belying its monstrous size, and began lumbering towards Macbeth, the other ships in the assault group following in her luminescent wake. Emery turned his head as Abram's face appeared in his HUD. At least, Emery liked to think of the blank, mechanical helmet that covered everyone's heads as a face. It made it hard to relate to the other guys in the middle of a mission, but perhaps they couldn't do their job of killing and being killed properly otherwise.

"I never liked atmospheric entries," the raccoon said over the squadron's channel.

"Starblazers are space superiority fighters… designed to fight wherever they're needed," Calim replied, his own blank head popping up. "We'll be fine."

"Long as you don't peel off after enemy fighters without orders," Emery cut in. Abram coughed and shut off his communication. Calim remained on the line.

"Think he'll be okay once we hit the anti-aircraft screen?" the squirrel asked with genuine concern in his voice. That was what set him apart from other soldiers, Emery knew. Faults and errors were something to be taken in stride, corrected and cared for until they became strengths. Jagger, and even Emery to a certain extent given his extra responsibility, would have brushed off the young raccoon's anxiety with an order to get their guns ready.

"None of us will be okay," the arctic fox replied, eyes narrowed and hooded within the confines of his helmet. "A bunch of fighters and cruisers trying to blow through a screen of capital ships?" He shook his head. "Desperation is what it is. We're hanging on by the skin of our teeth."

Calim offered a sardonic laugh; uncharacteristic for him, but the cynicism of the situation was infectious.

"Poor bloody infantry…"

A cruiser not too far away exploded. Most of the bow was ripped to shreds by a round from a mass driver. But it wasn't part of the outgoing attack group… it was part of the defensive line around Macbeth.

"They just wiped out the _June Bug!"_ shouted an unidentified pilot. "The shot came from outside! They're attacking again!"

Abruptly, the entire defending fleet lit up with expended munitions. Coilguns and beam cannons flashed into the night. Missiles darted about like macabre fireflies, and ships repositioned as the next wave of attackers crashed into the wavering grid. The hasty defenses quickly yielded in several places, and speedy corvettes and fighters rushed to plug the gaps.

"Attention all pilots," said Dunell, captain of the _Procyon._ "Enemy fighters and cruisers are coming up to meet us. Further enemy ships are inbound from behind. We're nearing the exosphere. Consider our mission a go. We'll mix it up and give you support as long as we can. _Vanguard _will provide close fire support the rest of the way. The aliens are stacked up in three defensive levels, lightly armed, so let's hit them hard and fast. Good luck out there, boys."

"Good luck he says… we need a miracle," Emery muttered into his helmet, and then shouted, "Gamma squadron! Form up! We're not here to dance, so we gotta move! Stay close to the _Procyon,_ but the moment we hit atmosphere, full burn!"

Emery watched his screen slowly fill with hostile signatures. They were evenly matched in numbers up front, but easily outnumbered by the ones coming behind. Their only chance of survival was to stick close and draw the enemy into range of the _Procyon's _guns. But that would only work if the enemy didn't-

"Two enemy frigates clearing the thermosphere!" he heard a frantic voice report. "This is gonna get ugly!"

_Just the way we like it,_ Emery thought wryly as the battle group was set upon from both directions. Laser fire suddenly welled up in front, slashing into his shields. The first tier of enemy fighters, more of the Crescent class, had already gotten into effective range, and they looked ready to mix it up at close quarters.

_So fast…_

Knowing that slowing down in the slightest would mean getting bogged down and caught up the tailpipe by the pursuers to their rear, the battle group accelerated to speeds considered insane for gearing up for re-entry. But they had no choice.

The _Procyon _and _Vanguard _opened up with their weapons at anything close enough. Point defense beams lanced outward with surgical precision, forming a sphere of destruction as they brushed aside the first wave and plowed into the second one, which consisted of corvettes, cruisers, and those two frigates they had been warned about.

Deadly beam fire, meant to bring down capital ships, grasped up at the onrushing ships at worryingly close distances. Emery and his squadron flew out of the protective cover of the _Procyon_ and dashed onwards, passing by an unfortunate cruiser that was suddenly gutted by a high powered beam that carved it virtually in two. Emery saw the words _Yuletide _on the port side a millisecond before they were melted away by the ensuing explosion. That must have been a lucky shot from the enemy battleship that lurked like a deep-sea predator below the defensive screen.

"Keep going!" Captain Gibson shouted from aboard the _Vanguard._ "_Procyon _can't help us now! Get those beam cannons targeted-"

Anti-aircraft fire continued unabated as the motley collection of Lylatian ships streaked to their objective, guns firing constantly to clear a path through the swarming enemy ships that rose up to stop them. The Lylatians were scoring numerous casualties, but every so often Emery could see the toll this was taking. Here and there a friendly fighter was swatted out of the sky, a corvette went down in flames…

A torpedo fired from a friendly destroyer farther back suddenly streaked by his fighter, the heat of the propulsion system sparking alarms in his cockpit. "Watch that crossfire!" Emery shouted as his friends scattered to avoid the backwash. Damn those capital ship gunners! They thought they could shoot anything with impunity…

The arctic fox immediately found himself away from the protective huddle of his squadron, exposed to several enemy fighters coming from planetside. They were just as surprised as Emery to find themselves on a collision course, but he reacted quicker. He opened up with his laser cannons and tore right through their formation, scoring two quick kills on the way. He remained on high alert, his ears straining to catch each and every sound and warning his Starblazer's computer gave him. This was far from over.

All around him enemy and allied vessels were caught up in a confused tangle, with alien invaders rushing to intercept the speeding Lylatians. Friendly ship captains completely ignored damage being taken, firing haphazardly at any target available until weapons overheated and burst as they dashed to safety. Some were going in with their guns literally blazing. One of the enemy frigates making up the third and final defensive screen whirled on her axis in a desperate bid to keep the Lylatians in view. Her lightly defended stern and engines were set upon by a group of opportunistic corvettes late in catching up to the blockade runners; Emery knew she'd be going down in minutes. And there were yet more enemies to deal with. Was it just him, or was the enemy fire actually starting to slacken?

He barrel-rolled to the right as a beam cannon ripped apart the space where he had just been, incinerating an unfortunate group of pilots behind him that had not been quick enough.

_I forgot… the enemy only stops firing to get a better shot._

The _Procyon _knew that most of its heavy weaponry was neutered by her proximity to the planet. She was already too close for anything except pin-point accuracy and guided weapons like missiles; they couldn't fire anything larger without risking severe damage to one or more civilian cities below. The only option was the more accurate beam cannons, which grew extremely deadly at these shorter ranges. The destroyer split off from the battle group and drifted to starboard, still trying to target enemy warships with what weapons were available.

Now the rest of the flotilla was on its own. They still had two enemy destroyers in their way. The battleship was rearing its ugly, battle-scarred bow to chase down the _Procyon._ Emery could see the behemoth break free of Macbeth's gravity and begin the hunt, firing its heavy guns and beam weapons as it completely ignored the smaller ships passing it by. Perfect… the enemy's impetuous nature had just cut their defending firepower in half.

The enemy destroyers lay just beyond the battleship. The _Vanguard _peeled off to draw them away. Emery thought up a quick prayer to offer the vulnerable frigate some level of safety. Once they got out of range of the destroyers, they wouldn't be able to pursue if they wanted to avoid being smashed into the ground by Macbeth's gravity. For a brief few moments of clarity, he actually began to believe that this was going to work. If they could just survive until they reached the city and keep their casualties as minor as they were, they might just have a fighting chance. They might just turn things around.

"We've breached the mesosphere!" Abram reported as he swerved around a burning enemy fighter.

"Make sure those heat protections are up!" Emery shouted back. Fire and flame which had been flickering at the edges of his vision enveloped his ship, the kinetic barriers around it flaring to nearly blinding levels of luminosity.

"I'm assuming this is where the 'fun' begins," Jagger snarled bad-temperedly. They could hardly see incoming enemy fire, and wouldn't until they reached the lower atmosphere. The enemy carrier with her cruiser and corvette escorts were all that remained, and they weren't budging from their position above Sirrus for anything short of a disaster. The Lylatians formed up for the final rush, their tattered formations still holding, resolute with a fire that only a fight for their homes could ignite.

It was calm here. So focused were the aliens on attacking the city and driving off Lylatian ground counterattacks that they hadn't spared their forces to try and repulse the charge from above.

"This is Lieutenant Commander Orinoco of the _Wingding!"_ Gamma squadron heard. "We have to get under their fighter screen and attack the enemy units directly on the ground! All fighters keep the cruisers and corvettes covered. We'll take down the carrier; don't worry how. We've got a couple minutes to get back in formation, so let's at least look presentable for this."

"Cruiser jockeys…" Emery heard Jagger mumble.

Sirrus was in bad shape. Now that Emery had a moment to take it all in, he found himself fully aware of the battered city. Two massive craters dominated the city limits. Those must have been the orbital bombardment missiles Emery and his crew had been warned of. Most of the city was a charred wreck, the buildings bombed out shells and the streets littered with debris, and what appeared to be bodies. Smoke choked the air in many places. It was a sad sight. If only they had been here to help…

"Hey, aren't planetary garrisons supposed to have at least a few fighters of their own?" Abram asked over the general channel.

"They're still trying to mass for a counterattack," Orinoco replied. "And anyway, nobody was expecting this. That carrier and her escorts easily overwhelmed any local resistance; atmospheric fighters can't possibly take on ones designed for all around superiority. They hit every major military center with those orbital missiles within twenty clicks of here when they breached the grid after the warp. Only thing left of Barnham and Yangtze bases are smoking craters. We can't expect the guys on the ground to put up a real fight until _we_ start mixing things up."

"We got more problems," one of the corvette commanders announced. "Enemy fighters and cruisers incoming from behind, angels high… more from below. They'll be all over us in precisely thirty-three seconds."

"Pincer movement," Jagger deducted. "Trap us in between them and we never even get to have a shot at the carrier!"

"All fighters," called Orinoco, "take on the guys up top, try to delay them. We'll punch through to the carrier."

"Hold up!" Emery snapped, surprising everyone. "We're broken up enough as it is! We divide our forces now and we'll never make it!"

"Gamma lead, this is no time to lose your tongue!" Orinoco replied. "You have your orders, now move!"

Emery opened his mouth to say something else, knowing that this was suicide… there were too many coming from up above to even have a chance of being deflected. No chance…

"Belay that, lieutenant… we'll keep you covered," a new voice said over all the communication channels. It was a gruff and gnarled voice, full of sandpaper and grit. It gave Emery pause when he heard it. Somehow it had rung a familiar bell.

"Excuse me," Orinoco blustered once he had mustered a reply, "but just who do you think you are? Identify yourself!"

"New contacts coming from the west…" Calim said, astonished. Emery looked to his left, and saw twelve glints of light coming out of the early afternoon sun. They were fighters, shaped oddly and obviously not fresh off any manufacturing lines; the database didn't have anything on their identities. But they almost looked like…

"Who am I?" The stranger laughed, his tone that of malicious amusement as he boosted towards the aliens approaching from above.

"I'm the guy that's gonna pull your tails out of the fire!"

"I don't believe it!" Abram exclaimed, and for a brief moment Emery joked to himself that of course the kid would know. "They disbanded right after… it's really him!"

"You got it, kid!" the stranger in the lead fighter barked out with predatory joy as his squadron tore into the flank of the alien ships with merciless precision.

"I'm Star Wolf!"


	9. Catalyst

The clamor that followed the arrival of one of the most notorious criminals in recent history was almost enough to throw the entire formation into disarray. Emery himself was in shock when he heard none other than Wolf O'Donnel let loose a feral bellow of triumph as his small but elite squadron wiped out ship after ship that stayed in their sights long enough. It was almost hypnotizing to watch. Twelve small fighters that, while not Starblazers, were perfect machines for the hands that guided them. They dodged and weaved through the enemy ships attacking their rear, smashing any attempt by the aliens at organizing a defense against the exceptional pilots. This freed up the entire Lylatian attack force to engage the ones in front.

They had the initiative now, and they couldn't let it go for any reason.

"All ships, engage the enemy. Take down the fighter screen and disable the carrier. Aim for her turrets. Cruisers, I want a staggered spread, and watch the flanks. Corvettes, focus on the enemy cruisers; fire at will!"

Orinoco glanced up as the fighters and corvettes began their attack runs, feeling his ship rumble as her main guns opened up on the remaining alien defenders. Despite Star Wolf's timely intervention, they had a thick wall to crack before they could even hope to start supporting their soldiers on the ground. If the enemy ships above managed to break through from above and provide reinforcements, they were finished, ace mercenaries or no.

The _Wingding _and the other cruisers under her command descended on the enemy mustering to meet them with impetuous fervor typical of cruiser personnel, lasers and missiles suited to atmospheric flight rushing back and forth in a dazzling barrage. Orinoco found that he could only pray that Star Wolf had not lost its prowess.

---------------------------------

Emery smiled thinly as he scored his fourth kill of the day, even if it was only a scrawny Crescent fighter instead of the bulkier ships they had glimpsed in space. It was strange; he didn't feel anything when he saw the flaming wreckage go spiraling out of control and smash into the ground hundreds of feet below, creating a momentary flower of wrenched metal and scorching fire. It must have been because of the Aparoids. They were not alive, they were just creatures he had to shoot, shoot, and shoot some more until they stopped moving. He supposed it also helped that they weren't exactly _people _he was killing now, just enemy fighters and ships. He wondered for a moment what it was like on the ground.

His single moment of introspection cost him valuable shield power as laser fire grazed his right wings.

"Guys, we're supposed to be covering each other," he admonished his squadron as the enemy fighter that had fired on him was blown away by Jagger.

Gamma squadron was still dogfighting above the carrier, in the middle of the massive melee of cruisers and corvettes dodging and shooting each other with rapid, spastic maneuvers. It was tight quarters combat all around, unlike the widespread conflict currently raging in space. Flashes of destroyed ships and falling debris were visible to the edge of the horizon.

"It's impossible to take them from all the angles they're coming at," Calim answered. "And that carrier's guns are lethal. What say we get low and fast?"

"Roger that," Emery replied. "Gamma squadron, on me. We're going down to street level to regroup."

"That'll be a problem," Jagger muttered. "I'm detecting what appear to be several anti-aircraft defenses on the rooftops. Those things are _big; _they'll rip us to pieces. We'll need cruiser support to take those down."

"Don't worry about those guns," interrupted a new voice on their squadron channel. "They're no match for us."

"Star Wolf!" Abram blurted out, as much a warning as a notice. Five Star Wolf's fighters, their profiles more sleek and compact than the old Wolfens they used to use, jetted in under Emery and his squadron, on full speed to the city. The anti-aircraft defenses opened up at once, but they were designed to attack cruisers and other large ships; they couldn't stop the assault of nimble fighters. O'Donnel himself was leading the charge towards the first installation, dancing between volleys and ducking below another, launching several missiles in rapid succession at the first gun even as one of his wingmen was ripped apart by a skillful blast from the gun, moments before impact. The entire rooftop disintegrated under the extreme amount of ordinance, and that part of the ground based anti-aircraft grid was no more.

"What are you doing out here?" Emery asked as his squadron entered the gap in the alien defenses. "You're supposed to be the bad guys, eh?"

"The Aparoids gave me a bad taste for foreigners. Plus, these guys play for keeps; they hunted us just like everyone else," was Wolf's terse explanation. "Now shut up and help win the war!"

Emery decided to leave the wolf to his work of clearing out the other guns. His squadron, flanked by several others, dived down perpendicular to the carrier, whose point defenses were tied up with the cruisers now beginning strafing runs along her hull. It was dumbfounding how such a gargantuan ship could stay aloft just above the surface of a planet; it was easily as large as the _Procyon_. It must have had something to do with their advanced control over gravity.

But, Emery was more concerned about taking it down than keeping it in the air. As they swept under the skyline of the city, into the shadow of the carrier, they found themselves confronted by several wings of alien fighters pouring from the cavernous hanger bays, who were already contending with several squadrons of Lylatian corvettes.

"I was wondering where the rest of them were," Emery remarked as he took command of the small flock of Starblazers. He was not a stellar pilot, but everyone who had served on the _Aragosa _knew he was among the most experienced. "All right guys, they've rolled out the welcome mat. Let's show them some Lylatian hospitality. Watch the carrier's belly guns; target bombers and fighters first, then anything of opportunity."

Macbeth's ground troops cheered when they had seen the Lylatian cruisers charging out of the sky to engage the enemy directly. After several hours of hanging on by the barest of margins, they now had a fighting chance to reclaim their city. The aliens, however, still fought on, even as a second group of Lylatians came down from on high to support the first task force, The carrier with her paltry cruiser escort still had fangs.

Gamma squadron stayed together as they dodged pulsar cannons reaching out from the carrier to burn their fighters out of the sky, ripping apart the pliable formations of the enemy fighters. The entire battlefield became a maelstrom of dueling pilots. The anti-aircraft fire from the turrets installed on the buildings below was being disrupted by Star Wolf, which surreptitiously kept out of the thick of the fight. They were doing their jobs, but only to the bare minimum after their flashy entrance. Wolf O'Donnel was a fearsome fighter, but he never liked to endanger himself without good reason, and single-handedly attacking anti-aircraft batteries was enough of a load for him to take.

The dogfight under the belly of the carrier was fast and furious. It would have seemed like a foolhardy move, but the Lylatians were desperate to take the pressure off the ground troops. The entire area under the carrier was a stronghold for the aliens, who had already spread through most of the city, but they were thrown into a panic once their supply and escape route was put under threat. More and more enemy fighters were recalled from the atmospheric blockade to secure their home base. Eventually the pressure was enough that Gamma squadron began to take more daring risks. The cruisers were having a hard time making a difference in the shielding of the carrier, especially given that they had to play cat-and-mouse with the carrier's escorts. The anti-aircraft guns were numerous and powerful as well. They kept the corvettes on their toes and were a constant threat to the Lylatians, who began taking heavy casualties. And the enemy was still coming.

"Split up, Gamma. Down below the skyline if you can," Emery ordered.

The formation broke up in separate directions, taking cover under the rooftops of the taller skyscrapers. Unfortunately, the enemy was there too. Crescent fighters tailed them between the sheer glass and Duracrete faces, firing indiscriminately and tearing up the already battered metropolis. _Hopefully_, Emery thought as debris rained down and bounced off his shielding, _these buildings have been evacuated._

The arctic fox found himself with two especially dogged pursuers on his tail soon enough, and most of his energy was now devoted to his rear shielding. His fighter bobbed up and down above the skyscrapers, but there was no way he could make any sharp turns. He was trapped beneath the skyline; every time he tried to surface back into more open air, the two on his tail would open up and force him back into the risky maneuvering between the city's buildings.

"Gamma two!" he called out to his friend. "You got anyone on your back?"

"Just Jagger, Emery," was the reply. Emery grinned, taking a risk and jetting between two towering financial buildings. As expected, his two chasers stayed with him.

"All right, we're gonna try something. I'm heading for those two central spires, see them?"

"Yeah."

"You and Jagger come up parallel to them and open up when they follow me around the next skyscraper. Catch them at the t-cross!"

"Roger that."

The aliens never had a chance. So focused were they on catching Emery, they did not see the two fighters sneaking up nearby. The arctic fox led them downwards until they were skimming rooftops, towards the decorative spires, equalizing shield power as laser blasts rained on him.

Just as he was about to jet right through the middle of the towers before jinking to the right to lead them into Jagger and Calim's guns, a missile alarm went off. Emery's blood froze for a split-second, but the siren was quickly silenced by automatic countermeasures released from his ship. What he did not expect next was the missile to streak over his fighter, and into one of the towers. Debris came raining down, blocking his path, and he yanked on his control stick, going completely vertical as he blazed straight up the face of the right tower; the carrier's underbelly loomed before him. The Crescent fighters were still close behind.

"Gamma lead, what are you doing? You'll stall if you bank that sharply!" Calim warned as he and Jagger accelerated to catch up.

Knowing the pulsars could catch him at this distance, Emery tried something desperate. He quickly cut off power to his engines, and yanked back on the controls, feeling his ship lurch backwards from the nose. The carrier was getting closer. Immediately, he flung his Starblazer into a barrel-roll, groaning at the G-forces that slammed into his body. But it worked. The ship was carried sideways by the momentum, and then spun downward, nose down to surface. The engines roared back to life, and Emery fought for stability as he plummeted to the ground. Behind, the enemy fighters crashed into the armored plating of the carrier, doing negligible damage at best. Emery was sure that someone would have cheered him for the dangerous maneuver, but they were in the middle of a battle.

"That was a little rash, sir," Jagger reprimanded him.

"Not now, Gamma four!"

"Emery! Look!" Abram shouted into the radio. Emery would have snapped at him for not using proper titles in the middle of battle, but his jaw dropped at what he saw even as he finished another barrel-roll. It was a terrible strain in the constraints of the atmosphere, but his Starblazer remained steady long enough for the arctic fox to see two iridescent beams of orange fury lance down from the carrier, vaporizing two separate Lylatian ground strongholds in one swift stroke. Entire blocks of skyscrapers came crashing down as their foundations were annihilated, bathing the area with smoke and choking dust. The cruisers that had been pestering the carrier now peeled off and retreated to a safer distance

"It looks like she's finally opening up with the big guns," Emery warned on the general channel. "We need bombers down here to take those beam cannons out, now!"

"Acknowledged," reported one of the cruiser commanders. "Bomber flights with Pisces escorts are already inbound from Maccabeus base to the south. Be advised, ETA is five to six minutes."

"Half the city will be gone by then," Jagger mumbled discontentedly.

"Well, we aren't letting that happen. Gamma squadron, arm Spectrum bombs! We're gonna try to take down those cannons. Star Wolf!"

"What?!" snapped O'Donnel, severely annoyed his rampage around the city limits had been interrupted.

"We need some help! That carrier will level the city before the bombers can get here. Help us take down her big guns."

"First off, kid, you don't order me around. I decide what my squadron does. Second, we got our own problems! We aren't tangling with an entire carrier! The guns are my problem; this ain't my city."

"That's mercenaries for you…" Emery muttered darkly, ears flattening against his head. "All right, anyone who's actually _got _my back, let's move!"

Gamma squadron faithfully formed up behind their leader in the midst of the chaos over the city. They came swiftly upon the first cannon. There were three of them on the belly of the carrier. Even as Emery's targeting system locked onto the humps that contained the beam emitter's signature, the great weapons charged up and launched another volley to the city below. Emery knew that dozens of soldiers had just been vaporized.

Well, now it was time for payback. The targeting reticule on his HUD closed in on the beam cannon, the beeping became a high pitched whine. His fingers tightened around the trigger.

"Prepare for-!"

He was interrupted by a sudden impact that tore through the remainder of his shields, and sheared off both of his port wings. His canopy was cracked. Gamma lead was sent into a downward spiral, his fighter careening out of control. All of a sudden things were blurring, his ship shook manically, and the spinning was crushing him into the seat. His breathing quickened as the panicked shouts of his squadron filled his helmets.

"What the hell! Star Wolf, you were supposed to be on those guns!" he heard Abram blurt out.

"Oh, uh… oops," was the callous reply.

Emery could hear others calling his name. But he was too busy trying to stop his plunge to hear them. Struggling against the inertia of his ship, he pounded in commands.

_Adjust G-diffusers for maximum output… initiate air brake sequence… flood gyros with stabilizer currents…_

It was barely enough. His ship leveled out, but it was smoking, and still going down. Two of his main engines were shot, his computer frazzled, and his HUD was awry. He spoke into his communicator for the final time.

"Calim, I'm going down! Take the squadron and finish the mission, destroy those guns!"

Something burst and sparked and flew off his fighter, momentarily obstructing his view of the ground rushing to meet him. He wrestled with the controls, trying to keep his fighter at an acceptable angle, and guide it into a straightway as a makeshift landing strip. Too steep and he would nosedive pavement. Too shallow and he'd leap-frog right into a building.

"Damn! Air brake failure! This is Gamma lead, I'm _definitely _going down!"

The buildings rushed by, blurring. At his speed, chances of surviving the impact were unlikely. He could only hope he landed on a street and skidded to a halt.

"I'm going… I…"

He couldn't finish the sentence. It distracted him from trying to survive, from seeing his doom running madly to greet him. He had been able to line his ship up with a certain street, relatively clear of debris… that three-way intersection that ran into a skyscraper wasn't very reassuring, though. An odd rushing noise filled his ears just before impact. He zoomed over a red sports car. Sarah had had a red car. She had had pretty eyes.

Then, all thought was cut off.

The fighter, somehow, landed intact. The Starblazer was a tough ship, and despite landing on hard pavement, it stayed together, gathering debris around it as it buried its underbelly in the street, smashing cars aside willy-nilly and throwing dust and dirt into the air. It skipped once on an overturned truck, and collided with the side of a building, ripping the third floor apart. The ship spun once in mid-air as it came out again trailing Duracrete and glass shards. It was fortunately slowed down by this incident, and collapsed into a smoking heap on the ground, the engines failing and the cockpit going dark as it came to its final rest as pieces of the building from above tumbled down onto it.

Suddenly things were very quiet. There was only the faint sound of dust drifting down, and a barely working radio filtering up from inside the canopy, now slightly ajar.

It was all static.


	10. The Streets

Dad?

_Yes?_

Why did this happen?

_Greed, son. Greed and hate. Don't ever try and hate someone. It won't get you anywhere except to the business end of a blaster._

But… they tried to kill us.

_It's possible to defend yourself without hate, son. It's even possible to kill without hate. But, that opens up a whole new can of worms. Now, come on. These cranes won't operate themselves._

* * *

"_Economists report that the depression is beginning to show signs of waning, as reconstruction on Macbeth has been completed and mining stations begin to re-open. New trade routes are being negotiated as representatives from Galactic Merchant Marine and Sinderea Technology convene in Corneria's capital city…"_

"… _expect a boom in employment opportunities as untapped natural gas deposits are discovered in the nebulae…"_

"_... reports a relaxation in government restrictions on interplanetary tariffs to assist in economic development. Dana Strauss has the story…"_

"_A recent statement from General Pepper reports that thanks to Star Fox, pirate activity is at an all time low, good news for freighter captains…"_

"_The mineral wealth of Sauria means opportunities for growth we haven't known before…"_

_See, son? Time heals just about anything._

Then why does history repeat itself?

_Is that why you're joining the force?_

I want to stop this from happening, Dad. I want to be there, like you were. I want to keep us safe. I don't want to just pick up pieces; I want to stop things from being knocked down at all. I don't want my kids going what we went through.

_With an attitude like that, son, you sure you'll live to see children? _

* * *

  
A crash is not often something pilots get to live through and tell the story about. More often than not, if they were unable to eject, they ended up splattered across the countryside. Emery was one of the lucky ones. Through some miracle of physics or perhaps a compassionate higher power, his ship had not fallen apart and crushed him beneath its own collapse, or been ripped to pieces and shredded his body. Nor had it pulverized his bones in the landing. Emery was simply a survivor here, one of those soldiers with the ability to remain unhurt during an extreme situation in war, for reasons no one was ever able to divine.

His eyes jerked open as he awoke from his dreaming. He glanced around, dazed and in a state of shock as afternoon sunlight spilled through his canopy. Its luminescent rays caught the drifting dust, just like they did back home. He always neglected to dust. Emery remembered that this was the haze of battle, and that he had not crash-landed into a peaceful memory of home. He lifted his arm and turned his head, hoping he was still functioning well. Most of his body was aching and bruised, but other than a cold numbness in his right leg, he appeared to be operational. A smile graced his snowy white snout. He had survived, intact, except for one problem. When he tried to move his legs, needling, icy pain flashed up into his head.

The memories of home he had been having were now more of a distraction than a pleasant pastime. He concentrated on getting his bearings. The cockpit's opacity was at a minimum, allowing him a good view of his environment. His Starblazer was in the shadow of the building he had smashed into, with debris piled up around his ship, still smoking from its injuries. Craning his neck revealed the carrier far above, dogfights swirling in the underbelly. Another incandescent beam reached down from the massive ship, incinerating a part of the city several blocks off. Emery could hear the explosions clearly, and feel the rumble of collapsing buildings. The enemy was probably starting to lose ground if they were taking those kinds of measures. Or maybe they were just cruel.

He noted there were more enemies than allied ships now. Where were Lylat's cruisers? Had they been engaged by another enemy strike force from above?

In any case, he refused to sit here and be disheartened. He had to get out and rejoin his comrades. He still had a squadron to lead.

The canopy was ajar; the crash must have knocked it loose. He placed his hands on it and pushed upward, jerking the window open inches at a time. Loose mortar and debris showered down into the cockpit. As the pain in his leg became more and more noticeable, Emery decided he had to get moving quickly to find rescue. If an enemy patrol came along, he was done for.

"Pilot has regained consciousness," his suit said, cutting through the constant fizzle of static.

"Really, I wasn't certain…" Emery mumbled as he searched for a way to get himself out. He was on foot from here on in; the Starblazer would never fly again. It was as the computer went on that his worries became much more severe.

"Warning. Severe dislocation of right patella has occurred. Numerous contusions detected on other appendages. Sprain injuries detected in left elbow. Administering morphine and bio-restoration chemicals."

His leg complained something awful as he tried to haul himself out of the ship. He finally got a good look as it came into the light, and broke into a cold sweat. His leg had indeed become dislocated at the knee. The odd angle it was jutting upwards at made his stomach flip. The pain became immense as vague panic set in, but he was probably just imagining it.

Emery quickly completed his retreat from the cockpit, dropping onto the street below with a pitiable cry. His leg had not taken kindly to that short drop. His fur was damp with sweat as he forced himself to start moving again. If he froze up here and waited, he would likely die. The pain was stabbing right through the suit's attempts to keep him calm, as he was well aware that the more he moved the more damage his leg would suffer.

"I gotta get up…" he told himself, bracing his hands against the ground and thrusting upward. His sprained elbow did its best to resist any activity, but it didn't hurt all that much. He had to fix this on his own, and immediately. He began crawling towards a pile of debris he could brace himself against.

"I gotta get up… I gotta get up!" he said, over and over again as he clawed his way backwards towards a concrete block under the building he had smashed into. He clenched his eyes shut to fight the pain. Every shift, every jolt, every drag along the rough, debris laden surface of the ground made his nerve endings shout, struggling to be heard over the pain killers. His leg felt like someone had severed it with a butcher knife.

Finally, he collapsed against the slab, breathing heavily. His helmet was starting to stifle him, and he unlatched it and tossed it away, breathing in fresh air and feeling much better for it. He groaned aloud as he saw the state his leg was in. The knee was jammed into a sickening concave position, the sheer abnormality of the injury making him feel worse than he should have. There was no way he got out of this without some kind of ligament or nerve damage. He closed his eyes, trying to focus. He was a soldier with a battle to fight. Now, how to fix this again?

He leaned forward as far as he could, grasping his lower leg with his right paw, and wrapping his other around the knee, his thumb pressed in above the kneecap. He took several deep breathes, preparing himself.

_This is gonna be the worst kind of pain, _Emery thought, but he did it anyway.

He started out slow, but that only made it worse. Immediate and ruthless agony swept up through his leg, lancing right into his brain. He broke into a cold sweat. He began shouting and cursing for all he was worth as he pressed onward, his head swimming. Gently, with all the control he could muster, the leg began straightening… but it was so _painful!_

A few more inches down.

_Keep pulling!_

It felt like his head would burst. _More, more! _He had to go further. He could _feel_ bone scraping against bone. Black spots swarmed in front of his eyes. He couldn't let himself rest or he'd never be able to work up the guts to try again.

One final push. He gritted his teeth and shouted through them.

There was a crick and a pop as his leg slid back into the joint, but Emery didn't allow himself to collapse. He grabbed his kneecap and gently maneuvered it back into position. Another sick, crunchy pop and he was done. The pain subsided immediately, and the fox gave himself a rest.

He collapsed onto his side and whimpered like a child, still clutching his leg with a death grip as he massaged the tightened muscles of his hamstring and thigh. The arctic fox was suddenly struck with the desire to close his eyes and sleep. It had been twelve hours (it felt like twelve months) or so since the start of the war, at least. In that space he had gotten a two hour snooze. His eyelids weighed heavily on him, and he rubbed them with the back of his hand. He had places to go and battles to fight.

Weary from his ordeal, he pushed himself up again, thanking whoever had invented morphine. He trudged back to the fighter to retrieve his blaster, looking at his reflection in the tarnished hull. He looked terrible; tired, unwashed, and spotted with dirt and grime.

_Just like any soldier should, I suppose._

He was suddenly aware of his position again, in the middle of a battlefield. In his reflection, he saw his ears perk and his eyes danced with a light that made him feel alive. He had been trained; he had been _conceived_ for this. He suddenly felt like he wanted to shoot something. Or maybe it was just the adrenaline talking.

He hauled himself up onto the fighter with some clumsy movements and reached into his cockpit, drawing out his blaster sidearm. Dropping back onto the ground, wary of repeating his dislocation, he looked up at the city.

It was a mess. Dust and smoke was everywhere from the collapsing buildings and burning war machines in the midst of Sirrus. A great plume of smoke was billowing up over the rooftops nearby. All around him he could hear the dull, repetitive _thap-thap-thap_ of heavy repeating blasters. The Lylatians must have been making their push back into the city. Mass drivers pounded the air with bass thumps, and he could sometimes hear the sizzles and cracks of small arms fire, much too close for comfort. Once, he thought he could hear an odd noise that sounded like a hovercar going through a tunnel, but he attributed it to some freakish alien weaponry.

Up above, the carrier loomed silently, corvettes and fighters snaking through the air as they gunned each other down, the flashing lights and minute explosions providing a horrid, macabre backdrop to the entire conflict. Lasers burned streaks across his eyes as they passed through the sky, and anti-aircraft fire ruled the day. He couldn't see any Lylatian cruisers. They must have been engaging enemy reinforcements farther up.

Emery sighed. Now that he was on the ground, this fight was suddenly beyond his ability to control. He turned, grabbed his helmet and slid it back on, in case a sniper decided to get a bead on his head, withdrawing the visor to keep his vision clear. Then, he started walking, barely glancing at the building he had partially demolished on the way down. He hoped the front lines weren't too far, and didn't dare try to send out a distress call in case the enemy pinpointed his location. Another worry was how he was going to defend himself. His little blaster was a powerful gun, but it didn't stand a chance against the full power of an alien assault squad, or whatever organization they used.

It was odd, really. Their first contact with an alien race, and it started with bloodshed. It was mystifying, but somehow not surprising that they had simply come and started shooting. That made it easier to feel good about killing them. He didn't want to know where they came from. He just wanted to know the best way to send them back in pieces.

Very soon he came to another intersection. Before he could have another thought, the street in front of him exploded.

The blast sent him flying back onto his tail, the heat singing all of his exposed fur. The landing was hard and painful, and made him fear for his recently reduced joints, let alone his poor tail which was already scruffy from the last several hours. Dazed and frightened, he struggled to stand through the red haze over his eyes, scrabbling for his blaster, which had landed several feet away. He must have flown at least ten feet or so. His ears rang painfully.

Through the smoke, a metal monstrosity obviously not of Lylatian origin lumbered into view, clumsily rearing backwards. It stalked about on four sturdy legs, which supported a large, angular main body. Even in its crouched position, Emery saw that the main pod itself was easily a full story high. The entire beast reached up about eight stories. Turrets and what appeared to be a missile launcher were positioned around the body, which also sported a main cannon similar to the beam emitters on capital ships. All of them were firing in a cacophony of noise as blaster fire from further down the street pinged off its armored surface. Emery had literally walked right back into the middle of the war.

Emery scrambled backwards, the sounds of gunfire and explosions rushing back into his sensitive ears.

A rocket zoomed out of the street the war machine was retreating from and slammed into its side, making it groan with stress. With a single vengeful blast with its main cannon, it turned in Emery's direction and began walking with frightening speed for its size. Emery was determined not to have his obituary read 'Stepped on by giant alien tank,' and reacted accordingly to the thing's terrifyingly agile movement. The fox prayed it would simply stomp right over him. 

No such luck; one of the turreted guns swiveled in his direction, guided by an impersonal targeting computer. Emery's hair stood on end as the turret straightened its aim. Still crab-crawling on his back, he finally felt his blaster slide into reach. He raised it, and in a rush of adrenaline and desperation, fired off a burst of pitiably defiant shots straight into the thing's marred face, jolting around with the impact of its monstrous feet crashing into the ground. The turret locked onto his location and prepared to fire.

Once again, Emery was knocked over by a large explosion. A missile from the sky had just impacted with the walking tank, disrupting its main turret's power supply and causing a massive chain reaction. Fire – green fire – erupted from the main body, but strangely it did not burn as hot as Emery thought it might. Laser fire poured into the breach as the abomination reared backwards as if in agony, stumbling into the wreck of another building behind it, back into view of its previous assailants. The tough construction shattered under its immense weight as a heavy repeating blaster down the street pounded the remains.

A Star Wolf fighter roared past at close range and began a steep climb. Emery saw it waggle its wings before departing once more, certain that the pilot had destroyed the tank for the fox's benefit.

Emery imagined he could hear the tank bellow in agony as it gave its final twitches of life under the ruthless barrage of blaster fire, then lay still. For all its might and terror, the grinding horror of war had reduced it to nothing more than melting, sparking scrap metal.

He stood up slowly and began to warily make his way back to the intersection the thing had appeared from, jaw agape. The main body of the tank was split wide open, a mess of burnt-out machinery and exploding munitions. What had it been like for the crew, if a crew had inhabited it? Had their deaths been quick? Had the fire vaporized them before their brains could even register the pain?

Emery hoped not. He hoped that they had felt the burn, the pain they had caused in so many lives in so short a time.

Apparently the Lylatian soldiers appearing down the street felt the same way. Emery poked his head around the street corner and saw them hurry up to their kill. Even at this distance, the straightness in their backs and easy gait spoke volumes about their elation at taking down the walking tank, even if it had taken a fighter's help.

"Damn! Look at the size of that thing!" remarked a young private, hefting his rifle as they came to a halt. "Why don't _we _ever get stuff like that?"

"Because we'd end up like the sorry bastards who drove it," answered a sergeant next to him. "Shot down by the toughest planetary guard in the system!"

"Hey!" barked the husky lieutenant leading the platoon. "This ain't over yet! Keep your eyes peeled, guns downrange! I want a solid perimeter at this street corner!"

They were not part of the elite Systems Corps, the army units attached to the fleet and able to take on the hardships of planetary invasion and zero-G fighting. By their uniforms and the way they handled themselves they had to have been part of the local Planetary Guard. Garrison units called on to engage the enemy in mostly defensive actions or making up the main attack force after a beachhead was secured by advance units. His mere status as a fighter pilot would ensure some respect, and Emery stepped into the open.

Despite their jubilation the soldiers were not ready for another surprise. A score of guns was aimed at the downed pilot before he took one step.

"Identify yourself!" the lieutenant called out as a matter of course. Emery held up his paws in a gesture of submission.

"Major Emery Wickliff, squadron leader serving with the 56th Fire Starters on the _Aragosa."_

The guns were lowered as the lieutenant came forward to shake his hand.

"First Lieutenant Carl Davek of the Macbeth Planetary Guard, 3rd Legions Infantry Division. Sorry about the surprise, sir."

"No worries. I crash-landed just down the street. You guys picked a hell of a time to find me."

"Well, you picked a hell of a place to crash. We were an advance unit and got cut off from our battalion after the aliens pulled some of their forces out of the mountains and back into the city. Timed it perfectly with our counterattack and chopped us to pieces. We used to be a whole company," he said with a dark glance at the remaining men, who all looked quite haggard now that Emery got a good look.

"Up top isn't much better," Emery said, trying to be consoling. "The cruisers have pulled back. I guess they don't have enough punch to take out the carrier on their own, especially with her escorts and the anti-aircraft guns tearing things up."

Lieutenant Davek cursed under his breath and looked around at the blasted cityscape, his men slouching visibly at the bad news. The smell of burning alien fuel stung his nostrils.

"We're heading for one of the bases we've managed to set up near one of the highways out of town. But we can't expect a big welcome. Ever since the carrier opened up with its big guns, everything on the ground has become a target until the flyboys get their act together. The aliens wiped out most of the guard we'd set up in the city once they touched down. Their ground forces _own _this city. Till you space cadets showed up, we were down to the skin of our teeth."

He raised his hand and pointed back the way they came.

"All right, they're sure to have noticed that we just took down that thing! Get ready to move out! Major, if you'd be so kind?"

"I'll need a weapon, and a medic. I hurt my leg on the way down." Emery said, looking down at his blaster. The lieutenant whistled, and a private handed him a spare rifle. It was an AR-75, an older model, but reliable and sturdy as all get out. He nodded in satisfaction and glanced around at the guardsmen gathering nearby. Now that their enthusiasm had worn off, they looked just as bad as him. All of them harried, wild-eyed, their bulky armor smudged with dirt and blood. They had to have been fighting since the first alien touched the ground.

"Our medic got blasted by that damn tank, sir. We'll try to let you keep up."

Emery nodded bluntly. He'd just have to be careful.

"Lead the way, lieutenant."

"Everyone, fall in!" the husky called out. "Remember what we're out here to do. We fall back to the stronghold, then hightail it back to Division HQ. Short burst transmissions and essential communications only."

They began jogging back down the street where they had chased the walker. Emery did not feel safer despite being with other soldiers. They were in the exact same spot as he was, reduced to fighting a running battle with the invaders until they could link up with the others again. His leg dragged, still refusing to work quite right, and his gait was clumsy and stiff-legged. It didn't feel good to move this fast without a splint, but they'd worry about that later.

"Cyphers! Galstaff!" the lieutenant barked into his helmet radio. "Pack up that blaster and meet up with us back at the grey building. We're leaving, soldiers!"

Watching these men, sliding along the walls and keeping their guns leveled at every shadow that crossed their path, surrounded by a dying city, Emery suddenly very small and out of place, and the blaster rifle felt heavy in his paws.

The streets were ominously silent save for the pounding thuds of errant boots.


	11. Turning Point

The run through the streets was not an experience that Emery would want to relate to his grandchildren in the years to come

The run through the streets was not an experience that Emery would want to relate to his grandchildren in the years to come. It was thirty minutes of high-strung anxiety. Every twitch was a directed, purposeful, stressed movement. Every step was measured and restless. The sounds of far-off war still surrounded them, and anti-aircraft turrets sputtered and coughed their angry purple fire up above, but for all the noise, the city of Sirrus looked mysteriously abandoned. Perhaps all the civilians really had fled. But Emery and the others could feel eyes on them whenever they passed a dark corner or a boarded up store. There were still people here, hiding among the ruins and blacked-out businesses, holed up in bunkers and air attack shelters, or even just basements.

Waiting for the storm to pass, for the alien hunters to cease their death march.

Praying that the soldiers they saw were enough to drive them back.

But where was the enemy? That was what Emery wanted to know. Perhaps they were spread more thinly than the fox had first thought.

"Lieutenant! I got a transmission from Division HQ!" called out the wide-range radio man of the group. Nearly everybody had their own personal communication system, but the importance of a single, powerful receiver and transmitter in a squad could not be overestimated. It linked into the Guard's network and provided extremely accurate and detailed information that even personal accessories could not provide. Davek signaled a halt, and the handful of soldiers with Emery in tow cloistered themselves in the shadow of a building's duracrete awning.

They huddled around the radio man as the calm voice of their Division Commander filtered through.

"-say again, this is the 3rd Legions Infantry Division. We have received reports of an enemy convoy retreating from the mountain range and re-entering the city. They will be passing near our position. We need reinforcement from any units in the area to attack. To anybody listening, the fleet has begun scaling back their offensive. If you are still inside the city center, retreat from there now, you will not be receiving support. I repeat you will not receive support for the duration of this engagement."

Davek tapped into Command's frequency.

"HQ, this is First Lieutenant Carl Davek. Do you read me?"

There was a short pause on the other end.

"Davek? From Echo Company?"

"Yes, sir."

"Hold on… Davek, we've pinpointed your location. Shifting you to the commander of 8th Battalion."

A new voice barked into the company's line of communication.

"Echo Company, listen up! We got a job for you guys!"

Everyone jumped at the ferocity of the voice. The commander, who sounded like a man familiar with war, was obviously under fire, given that there were static-filled explosions filling the space between his words.

"The enemy has set up some kind of heavy artillery gun that's pounding the hell out of our fortifications! We're marking it on your personal networks. Take that thing out; it's providing cover for the incoming convoy! We don't know what they're carrying, but we need it stopped, now! Do you read me, soldier?"

"Yes, sir! Leave it to us."

"Get it done! Over!"

Davek turned to Emery.

"Sir, would you mind accompanying us on this mission? I know you're injured."

"I can still shoot, Lieutenant."

"Roger, sir. Let's move out!

Before Emery could get another word in edgewise, they were off again.

As they neared the HQ, Emery could see blaster fire erupting over the rooftops, with the occasional misguided rocket or missile streaking upwards in gouts of fire and flame. The sounds of war were closer and more constant now, and the sky above was still crowded with dueling aircraft. The waning afternoon sun cast an unhealthy orange pallor over the city. Reflected off the ashen smoke that clogged the air, the whole battlefield seemed to be the color of sickly blood and pus. Wreckage from the battle in the sky was constantly falling to earth. This part of the city was in bad shape. Once clean and smooth building faces were smashed and torn by destructive gunfire. Several dead bodies (and pieces of bodies), all Lylatian civilians, littered the streets. Emery felt his anger spike when he saw the empty, pale eyes staring into nothing. As a fighter pilot, he had never really _seen _death. Just watched ships explode. Only rarely had he witnessed the deaths of others on the ground. His bitter emotional response made him worried; it was not something that a soldier was supposed to be doing.

_Focus, focus… you're dealing with everyone still alive, not grieving for the dead,_ he thought.

Towards the epicenter of the conflict they were about to join, a squadron of Starblazers roared overhead and dipped low over enemy positions. Launching a barrage of comparatively light ordinance they peeled off into the sky again without much fanfare, one of them suddenly swatted out of the sky by anti-aircraft lasers. Emery was not able to see if they were from his squadron. Seeing the burning wreckage of the unfortunate fighter disappear under the city's skyline, he certainly hoped they were not.

They began to near the main battle around the Division HQ. Now more bodies showed up. Alien ones. It was the first time Emery got a good look at the enemy they had been fighting for the last twenty-four hours. It felt like eternity.

Once, when Davek called a quick halt to get their bearings and pinpoint enemy locations, Emery trotted over to one of the bulky, armored carcasses. It was an intimidating beast. The armor, heavy and plate-like and the color of dry sand, covered its entire body. Even with the smooth curves and futuristic technology visible in the helmet and gun, it was obviously created with little subtlety and much practicality in mind. Its head was long and rather flat, and the powerful legs branched out into two wide toes at the feet. These creatures, almost seven feet tall, were obviously not lacking in physique, but despite all that there was a certain sleekness, a predatory line that wound through the body. No wonder they were so brazen. If Emery looked as tough as the alien's armor suggested, he'd feel near invincible too. But these aliens were dead. Nobody else bothered to stop and take a look; the Guardsmen knew that their survival did not depend on understanding the enemy, just stopping them.

Transmissions, some controlled and stoic, others loud and desperate, began flooding in over the radio as the group rounded the corner that led to the street Eighth Battalion was fighting on. The gunfire was very loud, and very close. Echo Company lined up alongside what looked like the main building of a large bank. Emery was unable to tell which; the logo had been struck by an artillery shell. The entire front was glass walls and doors, pitiful cover, but it allowed the soldiers to see what was happening. A battle was taking place just down the street. Davek hunched up behind the cornerstone at the edge of the bank, just in front of the intersection. Down the street a group of Lylatians were holed up in a large office building, the first few floors barricaded heavily. Across from them, enemy troopers had taken the opposite block and were engaged in a shooting match with them. Emery, close behind the radio man who followed Davek, was tempted to poke his head out along with the lieutenant, but at that moment they were met with a hail of fire. The aliens had noticed them.

Emery, without a helmet, ducked his unprotected head as large chunks of the wall in front of them came raining down.

"Cover fire! Cyphers, where's that heavy?" Davek shouted over his shoulder.

The aforementioned Guardsman was already unpacking his heavy repeating blaster with the help of his partner Galstaff. They jumped into the lobby of the bank building, crouched down, and laid down a withering wall of fire. The heavy blaster tore open the front of the building, smashing the glass front and creating a cacophony of noise that distracted the enemy. Hot plasma seared into their cover and melted their armor.

"Go! Go!" Davek yelled. Echo Company, with Emery in tow, dashed across the street; the arctic fox nearly collided with Davek as they whipped back around to give Cyphers and Galstaff covering fire.

Miraculously, the company made it across intact, but they weren't done yet. Davek led the way into an alley behind the building they had reached, and spoke into his helmet.

"8th Battalion, this is Echo Company, do you copy?"

"Roger Echo, what is it?"

"We are coming up on your position from the south! I repeat friendlies coming in from the south."

"We got your location Echo. You're right under Charlie Company; they were wondering who got the bad guy's attention. The turret you're looking for is due north north-east of your position. You should be able to get a visual from where you are. Be careful! We have reports of more walking tanks headed our way. We cannot spare support."

"Roger that!"

They squeezed through the alley to avoid more enemy positions, and hurried on to the main street, just a couple hundred yards from 8th Battalion's position. Davek looked out onto the main thoroughfare. Lylatians were engaged in a running battle with the aliens all across the area, but they couldn't stop. He could see a stairway across the street that led into a plaza up ahead, behind the alien positions.

Davek then turned his position to the Lylatians whose building they took cover behind. Blaster fire poured out of the windows towards the alien positions across the wide street.

"Charlie Company, this is Lieutenant Davek of Echo!"

"Charlie here. Good to have you aboard Echo, we're just a few floors above you. What can I do you for?" said a female voice on the other end.

"Give us cover fire until we can get across the street! We got an assignment to take out an artillery emplacement. We can spearhead the advance and clear out the enemy across from you, and then you follow. We'll roll up the enemy's flank and move on to the gun!"

"Sounds like a plan, Echo. Hold up and wait until we hit them."

Emery looked up at the building they had taken cover next to. Out of the windows sprayed a sudden burst of blaster fire, forcing the aliens across the street to duck their heads.

"Second squad, cover fire!" Davek shouted, and Echo Company added its guns to the mix, the entire group slowly making their way across the street in fire teams of four each.

Emery was in the third group accompanying Davek and the radio man, and hobbled to keep up, but the aliens had received reinforcements, and the fire from Charlie slackened as more guns ripped into their position. The aliens had taken positions in the upper stories of the buildings they occupied, and heavy repeating blasters were added to the storm. As Emery got to the halfway mark and hopped onto an island in the street median, one of the repeaters turned their attention on him. Almost immediately two of the soldiers with him were killed; he and the others threw themselves behind a wrecked car and huddled in as the enemy tore up their position. The alien weapons did not use the same technology as Lylatian blasters, and had a very high rate of fire with a distinct cracking noise accompanying their discharges.

Charlie Company suddenly sent out a burst of frenzied transmissions.

"The alien weapon's preparing to fire again!"

"Incoming! Everyone get your heads-"

A burst of pure energy tore into the building side, gutting the entire structure and vaporizing most of Charlie Company. The massive explosion bowled over Echo and deafened Emery, who yelled into the maelstrom of noise and debris. A large chunk of the building crashed into the street nearby, nearly crushing the remainder of Echo Company.

"That damn gun has us zeroed in! Pull back!" Davek ordered his remaining troops. Emery and the troops with him stayed under their protective cover, not daring to look up and return fire. Those who had already made it across the street found what protection they could, hanging onto their urban beached with the skin of their teeth as more alien troops rushed to the attack. Davek snagged the radio and shouted into the long range transmitter.

"This is Lieutenant Davek, calling TAC HQ! We're pinned down by enemy guns, we got the target marked right across from us! Does anyone copy?"

It was a long shot, Emery knew. If they enemy was smart, they would have hit the first enemies in the air that looked like AWACS or tactical control ships. A calm, confident voice then came in through the radio.

"This is Lieutenant West of Gamma squadron; copy your situation, Echo. Coming in fast and low, just hang in there."

Emery screamed as the gunfire continued unabated, ripping up the car around him. He was unaware that his former squadron was coming to the rescue; those shots were _deafening._

After only a few seconds, the alien gun could be heard thundering in the distance, tearing into another unfortunate Lylatian position.

"Damn it, Lieutenant! You still alive up there?"

"Watch yourself, ordinance away!" Calim shouted as Gamma squadron swooped down low and launched a volley of charged shots.

Davek watched the balls of charged energy hurtle towards their targets. "Take cover!"

In a rush of noise, the shots collided with the enemy positions. Before they could react, alien bodies were vaporized, ripped apart, incinerated. Charred hunks of duracrete and metal went flying as Gamma squadron soared back into the charnel sky, narrowly avoiding a burst from a nearby anti-aircraft laser defending the artillery position. Emery stood up with the others, ready to cheer the successful strafe, but then Davek had them all moving again. Emery looked up to the sky as Echo charged across the street and into the courtyard ahead. He now recognized his squadron's markings, and the way they flew. Abram always did keep his nose a little low in a dive.

--

"Damn!" Abram growled as he and the others pulled out of their attack run. "That jerk clipped my wings!"

Jagger muttered to himself as he adjusted his remaining shield power. "The anti-aircraft fire is too hot for any more ground assaults."

"Agreed," Calim answered. "Gamma squadron, pull out, stay high, make sure your countermeasures are working properly. Anyone get a hold of TAC yet?" The Tactical Air Command for this part of the ground operation had gone offline since the carrier started its own attacks on ground targets.

"Negative, Gamma two!" Abram replied. "I'm more worried about Emery…"

Calim's sigh was remorseful, but he kept his voice even. "We know he's _somewhere _down there. Right now we need to focus on keeping ourselves alive! Where's Star Wolf? Fire Starters, anyone got a sitrep?"

"Whiskey Lead, here. It's bad, Gamma two. We got multiple ships down, the carrier has suffered minimal damage, and for some damn reason, nobody's ordered the rest of our forces down here! Our cruisers are regrouping outside the city, enemy ships are rallying around the carrier. The space battle's taking its toll; I don't think we're gonna last much longer!"

"They got an intense field of fire up around the carrier! We'll never break through without the support of the fleet!" added a desperate, orphaned pilot just back from a failed assault on enemy positions.

"Star Wolf has dropped communications with our forces," relayed a ground commander, the very same that was coordinating the 8th Legions Division, and by extension, Echo Company. "Their fighters are congregating in an area near the edge of the city. We can't spare anyone to investigate. Concentrate on keeping our troopers safe!"

"We've taken heavy casualties up here, Commander!" Calim replied testily, his tail flaring. "If your ground troops can't wrap up those anti-aircraft guns, we'll be making suicide runs with every pass!"

"We are all we have left to work with, Gamma two!" was the snappy retort. "This city is on its own for now. You pilots let up, and they'll chop us to pieces! I will _not _allow us to waste ourselves in a counter-attack! We hold them here and now for as long as we can until the Systems Corps can send support, you got that?"

"… Yes, sir."

It was then that Gamma squadron heard a voice they had been longing for. Most of them despised being ordered around by ground-pounders, even if they were generals.

"This is Captain Orinoco. Commander, I have regrouped and joined up with the 405th outside the city near the remains of Yangtze base. We are re-engaging the enemy from the south. We will draw off their ships while you take care of the incoming convoy. All pilots, rally to me. We're still in this fight!"

--

Davek moved his company across the street after Gamma's strafing run which had wiped out the enemy positions, reaching the large, circular plaza Emery had seen in the middle of the office building complex they were in. Modern Lylatian cities like this were clean and geometric, unlike the more primitive towns on planets like Papetoon and Titania, but that meant there wasn't much chance for proper cover with so many straight lines and so little extraneous material.

This made things problematic when a fully automatic alien sentry gun opened fire three stories up across from their position, and extraterrestrial troopers sprang up from hiding places at the other end of the courtyard. Echo Company reacted professionally, returning fire and taking cover. Three Lylatians and two aliens were killed instantly in the opening shots. Emery dove behind some news terminals and fired over the top, feeling the heat of barely missed rounds hissing through the air behind him. Amazingly, the terminals still worked, and in the middle of the life-or-death struggle Emery was treated to an automated report of the rising price of fish oil in Macbeth's main provinces.

Emery didn't bother to see if his wild shots over the tops of the terminals scored any kills; he was too busy trying to stay alive. He yelped in fear when the alien munitions burned holes in his cover, cutting through to his position and singing the back of his tail.

"Oh, that is_ it_," he growled upon seeing his smoking fur, setting his blaster to full automatic. The angry fox stood up, aimed down the barrel, and squeezed the trigger.

The AR-75 sprayed out viridian bolts of death, ripping into two enemy soldiers who had foolishly tried to advance without the cover of their comrades. As he ducked down to allow his weapon to go through a cooling cycle, he noticed his cover was getting smaller and smaller by the second. Shots from the enemy were literally tearing pieces off his only shield!

The combat continued fast and furious nonetheless. Soldiers on both sides popped up for less than a second to deliver a few scathing shots, then ducked back down. Blaster fire raged back and forth, but the Lylatians were outnumbered. More enemy fire teams poured in behind the first.

Lieutenant Davek cursed loudly. Six of his remaining troopers were dead, and Galstaff was wounded. They had to push forward, but with that sentry gun blasting merrily away, a charge would be suicide.

Emery could tell the same from his position. Just staying here and shooting all day was not going to work. The more time they wasted, the convoy edge closer, and would soon be past them and beyond their ability to capture. Emery had never had official infantry training before, but he had taken his free time to familiarize himself with at least a few basic tactics. It was much the same as staying in a holding pattern above a battlefield: stay still too long and you were bound to get shot. Someone had to take the pressure off and let the rest of the company move forward.

He realized with a rush of cold sweat that that someone was him. He was the only one in a position to make it to another, safer area and hopefully take out the sentry gun. There was no other option, no other soldier who could find a plausible route to the enemy. He looked up at Davek. The fox and the canine locked eyes, and the lieutenant stared grimly at him before reaching down and tossing over a package, a perfect throw that landed right at Emery's feet. It was a belt of grenades with a combat knife holstered onto it. The lieutenant gave him a swift nod from across the open space, the sizzling, jarring impacts of lasers and blasters around him never making his gaze falter. Emery, so empowered, nodded back and tightened his grip around his blaster rifle. Davek called out to his remaining men.

"Suppressing fire, on my mark!" He hefted his own weapon. _"Mark!"_

No sooner had the concentrated blaster fire begun carving up the enemy positions had Emery begun his dash for the buildings nearby, hurtling towards an open doorway, his head ducked and one paw thrown over his eyes for what little protection it would offer. He could hear the thunderous roar of Lylatian and alien guns mixing behind him, felt the sting of white-hot plasma rush by him at ranges too close to consider, but on he ran. The ground chipped and burst around him, but on he went. It seemed to him that he was running through an impossibly long tunnel.

Just when he thought he had been exposed long enough to feel the sudden, gut-wrenching punch of an enemy round ripping him open, he was safe.

He collapsed into the open doorway, falling onto the floor and scrambling for purchase as blaster rounds slammed into the carpeting just behind his feet. He got up, tripped further down the hall, and fell flat on his face again. He lay there panting for a moment, incredulous that he had just accomplished that insane, berserk dash. He barely remembered it, it seemed to have gone by so quickly.

Then his mind braced him once more, and he was up on his feet.

He slipped the grenade belt around his waist as he took stock of his surroundings. It seemed to be on the ground floor of some sort of abandoned real estate office. He was standing in a large, open office area with a sprawling floor plan. He sent his eyes to the ceiling. He had to go _up._

Emery found the stairs easily enough, and hoofed it up two floors, where he would be on an even keel with the sentry gun. He went to the western wall of the building, and found that there was a walkway connecting his side to the other. Inside was the enemy position… and likely more fire squads he would have to go through. On his own. With nobody else around.

The absurdity of his situation suddenly hit him. How was he going to take down an entire fortified position _by himself?_ The very thought made him want to crawl back into his Starblazer and hunker down until the war was over. He didn't have the maneuverability of his G-diffuser, or the protection of his shields, and he certainly did not have the support of his squadron!

He began edging along the walkway, keeping his gun up. _This is impossible,_ he thought to himself. _Impossible, impossible, impo-_

"_Holy crap!"_

He threw himself down the first corridor he saw when two alien soldiers rounded the corner in front of him and opened fire, gouging holes in the walls and setting the fragile woodwork and drywall aflame. Emery, his ears ringing, stumbled down the hall a ways and threw his head back in a near panic. He could hear one of the aliens shout something in a deep, lilting language that sounded very much like an insult, and the thud of their armor-clad feet as they gave chase. Emery made another left turn, dropped a live grenade, then ran for his life. Just as he made another left at the end of the hall, his explosive did its work. He could feel the concussion from the explosion in his very bones as he hunkered down against the wall behind him, just around the corner to the hall he had just destroyed. Gun up against his chest, he crouched and breathed hard, trying to calm himself. Had it worked? Had the grenade killed them? He wasn't sure, he couldn't hear anything. The pain in his ears was dull and aching from all the abuse they had suffered. How did infantry get their work done with all this _noise?_

An armored, grasping hand found its way around the corner, barely missing crushing Emery's skull as the fox ducked beneath the iron grip, falling backwards to avoid the backswing. A thick, heavy arm followed the hand, and behind that, a charred helmet with a dazzling red eye dead center. Emery was close enough that he could see the motorized pupil focus on its victim.

There was an angry growl as the beast stepped around the corner, towering a full head over the arctic fox. It had not escaped the grenade unharmed. Its body armor was scorched and torn away in some places, and twisted metal fused and tangled with burnt, shattered bone and flesh. Raising a heavy boot as if to kick the vulpine creature before it, it staggered wearily as broken servos tried to compensate for dead weight. But this clumsy sight evoked no pity from Emery; he wasted no more time as he raised his blaster rifle and unleashed a full heating cycle into one of the gaps he saw. The alien warrior did not even have time to scream before it crashed to the ground in a messy, bloody heap.

Listening to the warning beeps of his overheated rifle, Emery stared at the remains of the once mighty warrior. This was what he was fighting, he realized. These things piloted the ships that had flown against him in the skies above, and during the attack on the _End Run_. He knelt down over the body, staring at the camera that made up the single 'eye' of the armor suit. It was dark and sightless. On an impulse, he reached out to touch the thing, maybe remove the helmet and see what exactly he was fighting. His paw, shaking, withdrew. He didn't need to see it, and he had wasted enough time.

He encountered no more enemy squads, probably due to the fact that Echo Company was putting up such a ferocious fight. Currently he was overlooking the courtyard, a single floor up and several dozen yards away from the enemy sentry gun, still going strong. All Emery had to do was distract them just long enough.

With another curse, he set his blaster rifle on its highest power output. The first few shots _had_ to do some damage. He held down the trigger and allowed the power to build into a single burst of energy, which he let fly without hesitation.

The noise almost blew his eardrums out, and the recoil was almost enough to rip the blaster right out of his hands. His shot tore into the sentry gun position with a mighty explosion, panicking the crew and sending the defenders reeling. Emery didn't stop firing until the gun clicked loudly and whined, announcing overheat in its power supply. Debris from the building side showered down on the aliens in the courtyard.

"Echo Company, advance!"

With that single order the company charged across the courtyard, throwing grenades with a will and firing incessantly into the dust cloud. Three more Guardsmen were cut down in the ensuing combat. Emery added his own gun into the mix, and could see more Guard reinforcements suddenly engage the enemy's left flank. They rolled up the line and routed the aliens in minutes. Tough as they were, they were not suicidal enough to hold to the last man.

"Not so tough without your big honking _battleships, huh?!"_ Emery couldn't help but shout at the fleeing soldiers.

Rejoining Echo Company he was greeted with a few congratulatory grins and a slap on the shoulder from Davek.

"Nicely done," the canine told him. "Your attack made them think reinforcements had come in from _your_ side of the courtyard. They never saw Delta Company coming." He nodded towards the newest arrival of Guardsmen, all flush with their small but bracing victory.

"All right," the lieutenant called over the noise of another discharge from their artillery target, "that gun is still firing, people! Our work is not done! Secure the injured and move it out!"

"Sir!" asked someone from Delta. "What about the dead?"

"No time to pick them up right now. We keep moving if we want to win. Pack it in!"

Reaching the alien artillery gun was no trouble after that. The gun itself was a short barreled behemoth cradled inside a housing that reminded Emery of some deep sea nautilus. It was situated between two large office buildings with an artificial cloak of some kind draped over it. On the rooftop next to it stood one of the remaining anti-aircraft guns in the city, baring its teeth at the remaining Lylatians still foolish to be alone in this part of the airspace. Emery wondered for a brief moment where his own squadron was. They were doubtlessly re-engaging the enemy carrier, which still hovered ominously over the city.

Stretched out before Echo and Delta Companies was a large boulevard leading up to the gun that was bristling with alien weaponry and barricades, sporting another one of those walking tanks. An assault would be impossible for their small numbers and far too costly even if the entire remnant of the Eighth Legions took part in the battle.

Fortunately, Delta Company had a way to reach out and touch the remaining anti-aircraft gun without even getting close.

"Hurry, hurry!" Emery said, guiding the two soldiers behind him along the row of buildings overlooking the boulevard. The plan was simple. He would keep an eye out for enemy soldiers while the two with him, both tough looking German Shepherds named Yeager and Barnham, would get their missile launcher into position. It was complicated and large enough to need two to operate it, and every time Emery peeked out from the cover they were darting to and fro between, be it a second story window or a flimsy alley corner, he felt certain that they were about to be spotted.

Being the technical ranking officer in the group had given him a sense of responsibility, forcing him to volunteer. Now he was just feeling like an idiot. In the distance he could hear elements of the Eighth Legions Division futilely engaging the enemy barricade. It was a silly maneuver, but one that would hopefully keep the enemy distracted long enough for Emery and his companions to reach the gun and blow it up.

At least he had an actual _radio_ now.

Their destination was a large grey building that looked like it had once been a hotel. Somehow they had come this far without being spotted. In that time period, the alien artillery had gotten off three shots. Three more bunches of Lylatians dead. Emery was not about to allow them any more kills.

"Set it up here," he said as they came up to the third floor of their building. He watched carefully as the other two Guardsmen set it up.

The stocky barrel of the Undertow missile launcher was something to be appreciated up close. It had been formulated as part of a plan for ground troops to more effectively defend themselves against larger air and armored targets, seeing as they had been virtually defenseless when Venom swooped down on them fourteen years ago.

Now it was working without a hitch, to Emery's great surprise. Covering his ears, he saw the great gout of smoke and flame as the missile broke free of its carriage and streaked upwards, a tell-tale trail of white smoke billowing behind it, its nose dipping and adjusting as the on-board computer guided the payload to its destination.

The strike against the anti-aircraft gun was one for the record books. It impacted the gun just below its power core, the force of its blow crushing the metal carapace and sending the missile diving into the inner machinery. The explosion tore apart the casing and detonated the core, sending the barrel of the gun flying as a mushroom of blue flame leaped upwards into the sky.

Emery did not take the time to celebrate like Yeager and Barnham.

"TAC HQ, this is Major Wickliff, on the ground. Alien targets marked and awaiting delivery. Confirmed destruction of remaining anti-aircraft gun."

"Roger that, Major," came a voice he felt he hadn't heard in years. "We're incoming with bombers, starting our run."

"Calim!" Emery spoke happily into the headpiece wrapped around his ears. "It's great to hear from you. Bring the rain, man!"

Gamma squadron's Starblazers, followed closely by remaining fighters from other squadrons, erupted triumphantly over the rooftops, lasers and guided shots raining down on the enemy infantry and walking tanks in the barricade. It was a glorious sight to see death and destruction raining down unimpeded at last, and from Emery's own side, too. Close behind the Starblazers came the bombers, which wasted no time in plopping down a massive payload on the alien gun. It went up in an explosion just as, if not more, spectacular than the one guarding it. Emery could feel the shockwave. Through the radio came a broad transmission to all the soldiers on the ground.

"Captain Orinoco here! We're back in the fight, Guardsmen, ready to turn this thing around. Hunker down and wait for air cover, these bastards can't hide in our ruins forever."

Emery finally allowed himself to stand up and cheer, despite the ache in his leg. This was a turning point in the battle to be sure. An entire division now freed up to begin a counterattack, and air elements keeping them covered to boot! With enemy air power dwindling with every loss and their ground forces suffering a setback like this, Sirrus looked as good as reclaimed. Yeager and Barnham were watching the fireworks display below, grinning openly. It was a good day to be a soldier.

It just as quickly turned into a living hell.

Without warning, a gargantuan explosion ripped through Sirrus, close to where the recently destroyed artillery gun had been placed. It seemed to come from nowhere. The roaring blast was more felt than heard, as massive as it was. The light was blinding, a terrifying sort of brightness that cut clean through his eyelids. Emery had no time to think before the incredible shockwave cracked open the wall in front of him and picked him up, slamming him viciously against the far wall, through a door, and into the hallway. The hotel's foundations buckled and groaned. After that came a massive wind, and then a terrible, terrible heat.

It singed his fur and bit at his eyes. It roasted the end of his tail. It crept through the walls, through his suit, through everything and into the very core of his being. It was unstoppable.

Emery screamed.

--

…

…

"_I repeat, this is the cruiser _Wingding, _holding position above the city! Is anyone alive down there?"_

"_Catastrophic damage reports flooding in… ground forces are in complete disarray!"_

"_Can anyone see through the smoke? I can't tell anything from up here."_

"_That whole section… wasted."_

"_I need a sitrep! Who's in charge? TAC HQ, do you copy?"_

"_Fleet command confirms explosion… they're still engaged, we're not gonna get any help."_

"_H-hello? Hello? Is this the right frequency? I'm a civilian…"_

"… _What the hell? Civilians are not allowed on this frequency! Clear the channel!"_

"_No, wait! You don't understand. I work with the Lylatian government! I'm… I'm inside the city! There's smoke everywhere! I- I think I'm bleeding…"_

"_What's your position? Who is this?"_

"_My name is Lucy Hare… I need help."_

--

A/N: Remember, this takes place after Command. It's not too far-fetched to see Lucy (who is likely a freaking genius at something or other like everyone else in Star Fox; nobody finds it odd an astrophysics teacher also makes a good killing machine?) doing something important.

Sorry for skimping out on details in the last part. But I've been away so long, and this chapter is big enough already, and I want to get the story moving forward… don't worry about length. At least you now have one canon character to latch on to.


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